T1561: T1561
Essential information
- MITRE technique ID
T1561- Confidence
- 100/100
- Revoked
- No
- Published
- 20/02/2020 23:02
- Modified
- 21/04/2026 17:28
- Author / Source
- The MITRE Corporation
Aliases
Disk Wipe
Platforms
windows macos linux Network Devices
Description
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](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078), [OS Credential Dumping](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1003), and [SMB/Windows Admin Shares](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/002).(Citation: Novetta Blockbuster Destructive Malware)
On network devices, adversaries may wipe configuration files and other data from the device using [Network Device CLI](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/008) commands such as `erase`.(Citation: erase_cmd_cisco)
Kill chain phases
| Kill chain | Phase |
|---|---|
| mitre-attack | impact |
Marking (TLP)
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