Skip to content
Every technique
T1542.005Not expressible in Sigma

TFTP Boot

Stealth · PersistenceNetwork Devices

Where this stands

No Sigma rule can address this — the telemetry MITRE names has no Sigma logsource behind it.

None of MITRE's analytics for this technique name a log source that maps to a Sigma logsource — they describe abstract data ("Process::None"), API-hook telemetry, or prose channels with no reliable field names behind them.

What the technique is

Adversaries may abuse netbooting to load an unauthorized network device operating system from a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server. TFTP boot (netbooting) is commonly used by network administrators to load configuration-controlled network device images from a centralized management server. Netbooting is one option in the boot sequence and can be used to centralize, manage, and control device images. Adversaries may manipulate the configuration on the network device specifying use of a malicious TFTP server, which may be used in conjunction with Modify System Image to load a modified image on device startup or reset. The unauthorized image allows adversaries to modify device configuration, add malicious capabilities to the device, and introduce backdoors to maintain control of the network device while minimizing detection through use of a standard functionality. This technique is similar to ROMMONkit and may result in the network device running a modified image.

Read it on attack.mitre.org

What MITRE says you would watch

  • AN1603

    Detection of unauthorized changes to boot configurations pointing to TFTP servers, unusual firmware loads during netbooting, or suspicious TFTP traffic. Correlation of boot config modifications, command history logs, and unexpected system image hashes provides detection coverage for adversaries attempting to persist via malicious TFTP boot images.

Technique names and descriptions © MITRE ATT&CK®, CC BY 4.0. Not endorsed by MITRE.