- Tactics
- stealth , Persistence
- Platforms
- Linux, macOS, Network Devices, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1542
Description
Adversaries may abuse Pre-OS Boot mechanisms as a way to establish persistence on a system. During the booting process of a computer, firmware and various startup services are loaded before the operating system. These programs control flow of execution before the operating system takes control.(Citation: Wikipedia Booting)
Adversaries may overwrite data in boot drivers or firmware such as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) to persist on systems at a layer below the operating system. This can be particularly difficult to detect as malware at this level will not be detected by host software-based defenses.
Sub-techniques
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's Threat Hunting with Data Science course teaches you to build machine-learning detections for techniques like this across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the stealth, Persistence tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1006 — Direct Volume Access
- T1014 — Rootkit
- T1027 — Obfuscated Files or Information
- T1036 — Masquerading
- T1037 — Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts
- T1053 — Scheduled Task/Job
- T1055 — Process Injection
- T1070 — Indicator Removal
- T1078 — Valid Accounts
- T1098 — Account Manipulation
- T1112 — Modify Registry
- T1127 — Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution