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T1529

System Shutdown/Reboot

ESXi · Linux · macOS · Network Devices · Windowsnothing on this site yetT1529 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may shutdown/reboot systems to interrupt access to, or aid in the destruction of, those systems. Operating systems may contain commands to initiate a shutdown/reboot of a machine or network device. In some cases, these commands may also be used to initiate a shutdown/reboot of a remote computer or network device via Network Device CLI (e.g. `reload`).

MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

If this is happening now

1

Checklists and playbooks to open while the alert is still live.

how MITRE says to see it

Multi-Platform Shutdown or Reboot Detection via Execution and Host Status Events

  • Correlate process execution of shutdown/reboot commands (e.g., shutdown.exe, restart-computer) with host status change logs (Event IDs 1074, 6006) and absence of related administrative context (e.g., user not in Helpdesk group).
  • Detect 'shutdown', 'reboot', or 'systemctl poweroff' executions with auditd/syslog and absence of scheduled maintenance windows or approved user context.
  • Identify use of 'shutdown', 'reboot', or 'osascript' system shutdown invocations within unified logs and track unexpected shutdown sequences initiated by GUI or script. Cross-reference with user activity or absence thereof.
  • Detect commands such as 'esxcli system shutdown' or 'vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown' executed outside of maintenance windows or via unusual users. Reboot logs in hostd.log and shell logs should be correlated.

The description, detection analytics and mitigations are reproduced from MITRE ATT&CK, version 19.2, under its terms of use. The checklists, hunts, labs and everything else linked here are this site’s.