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T1652 Device Driver Discovery

Adversaries may attempt to enumerate local device drivers on a victim host. Information about device drivers may highlight various insights that shape follow-on behaviors, such as the function/purpose of the host, present security tools (i.e. Security Software Discovery) or other defenses (e.g., Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion), as well as potential exploitable vulnerabilities (e.g., Exploitation for Privilege Escalation).

Many OS utilities may provide information about local device drivers, such as driverquery.exe and the EnumDeviceDrivers() API function on Windows.43 Information about device drivers (as well as associated services, i.e., System Service Discovery) may also be available in the Registry.2

On Linux/macOS, device drivers (in the form of kernel modules) may be visible within /dev or using utilities such as lsmod and modinfo.516

Item Value
ID T1652
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0007
Platforms Linux, Windows, macOS
Version 1.0
Created 28 March 2023
Last Modified 15 April 2025

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0376 HOPLIGHT HOPLIGHT can enumerate device drivers located in the registry at HKLM\Software\WBEM\WDM.7
S1139 INC Ransomware INC Ransomware can verify the presence of specific drivers on compromised hosts including Microsoft Print to PDF and Microsoft XPS Document Writer.8
G1051 Medusa Group Medusa Group has queried drivers on the victim device through the command driverquery.10
S0125 Remsec Remsec has a plugin to detect active drivers of some security products.9

References

  1. Kerrisk, M. (2022, December 18). lsmod(8) — Linux manual page. Retrieved March 28, 2023. ↩

  2. Microsoft. (2021, December 14). Registry Trees for Devices and Drivers. Retrieved March 28, 2023. ↩

  3. Microsoft. (2021, October 12). EnumDeviceDrivers function (psapi.h). Retrieved March 28, 2023. ↩

  4. Microsoft. (n.d.). driverquery. Retrieved March 28, 2023. ↩

  5. Pomerantz, O., Salzman, P.. (2003, April 4). The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide. Retrieved April 6, 2018. ↩

  6. Russell, R. (n.d.). modinfo(8) - Linux man page. Retrieved March 28, 2023. ↩

  7. US-CERT. (2019, April 10). MAR-10135536-8 – North Korean Trojan: HOPLIGHT. Retrieved April 19, 2019. ↩

  8. Cybereason Security Research Team. (2023, November 20). Threat Alert: INC Ransomware. Retrieved June 5, 2024. ↩

  9. Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research & Analysis Team. (2016, August 9). The ProjectSauron APT. Technical Analysis. Retrieved August 17, 2016. ↩

  10. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. (2025, March 12). AA25-071A #StopRansomware: Medusa Ransomware. Retrieved October 15, 2025. ↩