T1561.002 Disk Structure Wipe Mappings

Adversaries may corrupt or wipe the disk data structures on a hard drive necessary to boot a system; targeting specific critical systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources.

Adversaries may attempt to render the system unable to boot by overwriting critical data located in structures such as the master boot record (MBR) or partition table.(Citation: Symantec Shamoon 2012)(Citation: FireEye Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Palo Alto Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Kaspersky StoneDrill 2017)(Citation: Unit 42 Shamoon3 2018) The data contained in disk structures may include the initial executable code for loading an operating system or the location of the file system partitions on disk. If this information is not present, the computer will not be able to load an operating system during the boot process, leaving the computer unavailable. Disk Structure Wipe may be performed in isolation, or along with Disk Content Wipe if all sectors of a disk are wiped.

On a network devices, adversaries may reformat the file system using Network Device CLI commands such as format.(Citation: format_cmd_cisco)

To maximize impact on the target organization, malware designed for destroying disk structures may have worm-like features to propagate across a network by leveraging other techniques like Valid Accounts, OS Credential Dumping, and SMB/Windows Admin Shares.(Citation: Symantec Shamoon 2012)(Citation: FireEye Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Palo Alto Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Kaspersky StoneDrill 2017)

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

VERIS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
action.malware.variety.Destroy data Destroy or corrupt stored data related-to T1561.002 Disk Wipe: Disk Structure Wipe
attribute.availability.variety.Destruction Destruction related-to T1561.002 Disk Wipe: Disk Structure Wipe
attribute.availability.variety.Interruption Interruption related-to T1561.002 Disk Wipe: Disk Structure Wipe
attribute.availability.variety.Loss Loss related-to T1561.002 Disk Wipe: Disk Structure Wipe

AWS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
aws_cloudendure_disaster_recovery AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery technique_scores T1561.002 Disk Structure Wipe
Comments
AWS CloudEndure Disaster Recovery enables the replication and recovery of servers into AWS Cloud. In the event that server disks are wiped, AWS CloudEndure can be used to provision an instance of the server from a previous point in time within minutes. As a result, this mapping is given a score of Significant.
References
aws_rds AWS RDS technique_scores T1561.002 Disk Structure Wipe
Comments
AWS RDS supports the replication and recovery of database instances. In the event that a database instance is deleted during a disk wipe, AWS RDS can be used to restore the database instance to a previous point in time. However, this mapping is only given a score of Partial because AWS RDS only provides a backup of the database instance and not the underlying system that it is hosted on.
References