Looking for evidence of persistence
There are quite a few techniques used by malware and attackers to get a foothold into a system. These include classic techniques that have been actively used for many years. Additionally, there are relatively new ones that are only just gaining popularity. We are not here to tell you about every technique that exists, but rather to give you some tools that we believe will most likely help you to spot a piece of malware persistence on the system. And, of course, there's no shortage of examples.
Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
In this technique, the attackers change the system settings to automatically execute a program during a system boot or logon. For instance, they can add a path to a malicious executable as data for some value to the following keys:
HKLM \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
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