tfMITRE ATT&CK sub-technique

TFTP Boot T1542.005

Tactics: Persistence, Stealth
Platform: Network Devices
Version: 2.0
Created: 20 October 2020
Last modified: 12 May 2026

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.

ReconResource DevInitial AccessExecutionPersistencePriv EscStealthDef ImpairmentCred AccessDiscoveryLateral MoveCollectionC2ExfiltrationImpact

Threat groupsNone recorded

Threat groupsNone recorded · 29% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

CampaignsNone recorded

CampaignsNone recorded · 54% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

Tools & malwareNone recorded

Tools & malwareNone recorded · 29% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

Detection rules42nd pct

Detection rules42nd percentile · 58% of ATT&CK techniques have more detection rules written.

Offense vs defense T1542.005

Is defensive coverage keeping up with adversary use? Eight counts, each ranked against all 697 ATT&CK techniques. Attack sits left, defense right, so a shape leaning left means adversaries are better documented here than defenders are equipped. Hover any spoke for its percentile and the share of techniques that have more. The timeline below shows when each side arrived.

How it got here

Range

Adversary activity (campaign spans) over cumulative rule output. Each source is plotted independently from zero, so neither line includes the other. Campaign dates are year-granularity.

Campaigns · 0Sigma rules (cumulative) · 0Splunk ESCU (cumulative) · 1

first rule: 2020 Q4

TFTP Boot detection strategy DET0582

MITRE names one behaviour worth catching for this technique and breaks it into 1 analytic, one per platform. Each carries the log sources it needs and the fields you tune per environment.

Detection Strategy for T1542.005 Pre-OS Boot: TFTP Boot

Enterprise

1 platform

AN1603 · Network Devices

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.

Log sources

The data this analytic draws on. You do not need every component — each one you already collect covers part of it. Each links to its ATT&CK record.

Data component	Name	Channel
Firmware ModificationDC0004	networkdevice:syslog	Boot information log showing image loaded from TFTP server instead of local storage
Command ExecutionDC0064	networkdevice:config	Configuration changes referencing 'boot system tftp' or modification of startup-config pointing to external TFTP servers
Network Connection CreationDC0082	NSM:Flow	Unexpected inbound/outbound TFTP traffic for device image files

Tunable fields

MITRE calls these the analytic’s mutable elements: the thresholds and filters you set for your own environment.

Field	What you tune
ApprovedTFTPServers	Whitelist of TFTP servers authorized for netbooting in the environment
TimeWindow	Detection correlation window between config change, TFTP activity, and system reboot
BaselineBootImageHash	Expected system image hashes to validate integrity of boot images loaded via TFTP

TFTP Boot detections T1542.005

1 rule is mapped to this technique. Parent techniques also include their sub-techniques’ rules. Click a slice or key entry to filter the table.

42nd pctamong all ATT&CK techniques for number of rules

Product

(none) 1

Severity

Library

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