Disk Wipe: Disk Content Wipe

ID Name
T1561.001 Disk Content Wipe
T1561.002 Disk Structure Wipe

Adversaries may erase the contents of storage devices on specific systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources.

Adversaries may partially or completely overwrite the contents of a storage device rendering the data irrecoverable through the storage interface.[1][2][3] Instead of wiping specific disk structures or files, adversaries with destructive intent may wipe arbitrary portions of disk content. To wipe disk content, adversaries may acquire direct access to the hard drive in order to overwrite arbitrarily sized portions of disk with random data.[2] Adversaries have also been observed leveraging third-party drivers like RawDisk to directly access disk content.[1][2] This behavior is distinct from Data Destruction because sections of the disk are erased instead of individual files.

To maximize impact on the target organization in operations where network-wide availability interruption is the goal, malware used for wiping disk content may have worm-like features to propagate across a network by leveraging additional techniques like Valid Accounts, OS Credential Dumping, and SMB/Windows Admin Shares.[2]

ID: T1561.001
Sub-technique of:  T1561
Tactic: Impact
Platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS
Impact Type: Availability
Version: 1.0
Created: 20 February 2020
Last Modified: 12 April 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S1068 BlackCat

BlackCat has the ability to wipe VM snapshots on compromised networks.[4][5]

S0697 HermeticWiper

HermeticWiper has the ability to corrupt disk partitions and obtain raw disk access to destroy data.[6][7]

G0032 Lazarus Group

Lazarus Group has used malware like WhiskeyAlfa to overwrite the first 64MB of every drive with a mix of static and random buffers. A similar process is then used to wipe content in logical drives and, finally, attempt to wipe every byte of every sector on every drive. WhiskeyBravo can be used to overwrite the first 4.9MB of physical drives. WhiskeyDelta can overwrite the first 132MB or 1.5MB of each drive with random data from heap memory.[2]

S0576 MegaCortex

MegaCortex can wipe deleted data from all drives using cipher.exe.[8]

S0364 RawDisk

RawDisk has been used to directly access the hard disk to help overwrite arbitrarily sized portions of disk content.[2]

S0380 StoneDrill

StoneDrill can wipe the accessible physical or logical drives of the infected machine.[9]

S0689 WhisperGate

WhisperGate can overwrite sectors of a victim host's hard drive at periodic offsets.[10][11][12]

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1053 Data Backup

Consider implementing IT disaster recovery plans that contain procedures for taking regular data backups that can be used to restore organizational data.[13] Ensure backups are stored off system and is protected from common methods adversaries may use to gain access and destroy the backups to prevent recovery.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component Detects
DS0017 Command Command Execution

Monitor executed commands and arguments that may erase the contents of storage devices on specific systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources.

DS0016 Drive Drive Access

Monitor for newly constructed drive letters or mount points to a data storage device for attempts to write to sensitive locations like the partition boot sector, master boot record, disk partition table, or BIOS parameter block/superblock.

Drive Modification

Monitor for changes made to drive letters or mount points of data storage devices for attempts to read to sensitive locations like the partition boot sector, master boot record, disk partition table, or BIOS parameter block/superblock.

DS0027 Driver Driver Load

Monitor for unusual kernel driver installation activity may erase the contents of storage devices on specific systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources.

DS0009 Process Process Creation

Monitor newly executed processes that may erase the contents of storage devices on specific systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources.

References