T1561 Disk Wipe

Adversaries may wipe or corrupt raw disk data on specific systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources. With direct write access to a disk, adversaries may attempt to overwrite portions of disk data. Adversaries may opt to wipe arbitrary portions of disk data and/or wipe disk structures like the master boot record (MBR). A complete wipe of all disk sectors may be attempted.

To maximize impact on the target organization in operations where network-wide availability interruption is the goal, malware used for wiping disks 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.(Citation: Novetta Blockbuster Destructive Malware)

On network devices, adversaries may wipe configuration files and other data from the device using Network Device CLI commands such as erase.(Citation: erase_cmd_cisco)

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

VERIS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
action.malware.variety.C2 Malware creates Command and Control capability for malware. Child of 'Backdoor or C2'. related-to T1561 Disk Wipe
action.malware.variety.Destroy data Destroy or corrupt stored data related-to T1561 Disk Wipe
attribute.availability.variety.Destruction Destruction related-to T1561 Disk Wipe
attribute.availability.variety.Interruption Interruption related-to T1561 Disk Wipe
attribute.availability.variety.Loss Loss related-to T1561 Disk Wipe

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1561.002 Disk Structure Wipe 4
T1561.001 Disk Content Wipe 3