Pre-OS Boot: Bootkit T1542.003

Tactics: Stealth, Persistence

Adversaries may use bootkits to persist on systems. A bootkit is a malware variant that modifies the boot sectors of a hard drive, allowing malicious code to execute before a computer's operating system has loaded. Bootkits reside at a layer below the operating system and may make it difficult to perform full remediation unless an organization suspects one was used and can act accordingly.

Events covered

3 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEventTitle
SysmonEvent ID 1Process creation
SysmonEvent ID 3Network connection
SysmonEvent ID 11FileCreate

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 4 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (9 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
CommandLine2contains 1, ne 1delete, deletevalue, import, unknown
process_name2eq 2unmkinitramfs, winlogon.exe
DestinationPort1ne 10
EventType1in 1ProcessRollup2, exec, exec_event
Image1ends_with 1\bcdedit.exe
OriginalFileName1eq 1bcdedit.exe
TargetFilename1in 1*\\efi\\boot\\bootmgfw.efi, *\\efi\\boot\\bootx64.efi
event.type1eq 1start
host.os.type1eq 1

Top indicator values (19 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
CommandLinecontains
delete
123
CommandLinecontains
deletevalue
1
CommandLinecontains
import
14
CommandLinecontains
network
13
CommandLinecontains
safeboot
13
CommandLinene
unknown
13
DestinationPortne
0
17
EventTypein
ProcessRollup2
1117
EventTypein
exec
1171
EventTypein
exec_event
1139
EventTypein
executed
188
EventTypein
start
1134
Imageends_with
\bcdedit.exe
15
OriginalFileNameeq
bcdedit.exe
14
TargetFilenamein
*\\efi\\boot\\bootmgfw.efi
1
TargetFilenamein
*\\efi\\boot\\bootx64.efi
1
event.typeeq
start
1606
process_nameeq
unmkinitramfs
1
process_nameeq
winlogon.exe
14

Exclusions (7 distinct)

Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
All_Traffic.destin
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1
1
All_Traffic.destin
10.0.0.0/8
1
All_Traffic.destin
127.0.0.1
1
All_Traffic.destin
172.16.0.0/12
1
All_Traffic.destin
192.168.0.0/16
1
CurrentDirectoryeq
/usr/local/nutanix/ngt/python/bin
1
ParentImageeq
/usr/bin/lsinitramfs
1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 1 rule

Elastic 1 rule

Splunk 2 rules