T1543.003

Windows Service

SUB-TECHNIQUE Persistence Privilege Escalation

Description

Adversaries may create or modify Windows services to repeatedly execute malicious payloads as part of persistence. When Windows boots up, it starts programs or applications called services that perform background system functions.(Citation: TechNet Services) Windows service configuration information, including the file path to the service's executable or recovery programs/commands, is stored in the Windows Registry.Adversaries may install a new service or modify an existing service to execute at startup in order to persist on a system. Service configurations can be set or modified using system utilities (such as sc.exe), by directly modifying the Registry, or by interacting directly with the Windows API.Adversaries may also use services to install and execute malicious drivers. For example, after dropping a driver file (ex: `.sys`) to disk, the payload can be loaded and registered via [Native API](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1106) functions such as `CreateServiceW()` (or manually via functions such as `ZwLoadDriver()` and `ZwSetValueKey()`), by creating the required service Registry values (i.e. [Modify Registry](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1112)), or by using command-line utilities such as `PnPUtil.exe`.(Citation: Symantec W.32 Stuxnet Dossier)(Citation: Crowdstrike DriveSlayer February 2022)(Citation: Unit42 AcidBox June 2020) Adversaries may leverage these drivers as [Rootkit](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1014)s to hide the presence of malici…

Platforms

Windows

Mitigations

M1040 — Behavior Prevention on Endpoint
M1028 — Operating System Configuration
M1047 — Audit
M1045 — Code Signing
M1018 — User Account Management

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Source: MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise matrix. View on attack.mitre.org →