T1652

Device Driver Discovery

Linux · macOS · Windowsnothing on this site yetT1652 on attack.mitre.org

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

how MITRE says to see it

Detection Strategy for Device Driver Discovery

Monitor for suspicious usage of driver enumeration utilities (driverquery.exe) or API calls such as EnumDeviceDrivers(). Registry queries against HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and HardwareProfiles that are abnormal may also indicate attempts to discover installed drivers and services.
Detect attempts to enumerate kernel modules through lsmod, modinfo, or inspection of /proc/modules and /dev entries. Focus on unusual execution contexts such as unprivileged users or processes outside expected administrative workflows.
Detect loading or inspection of kernel extensions (kextstat, kextfind) and file access to /System/Library/Extensions/. Monitor unexpected usage of these utilities by non-administrative users or scripts.

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.