ATT&CK coverage › Technique
Hide Artifacts: Hidden Files and Directories T1564.001
Adversaries may set files and directories to be hidden to evade detection mechanisms. To prevent normal users from accidentally changing special files on a system, most operating systems have the concept of a ‘hidden’ file. These files don’t show up when a user browses the file system with a GUI or when using normal commands on the command line. Users must explicitly ask to show the hidden files either via a series of Graphical User Interface (GUI) prompts or with command line switches (<code>dir /a</code> for Windows and <code>ls –a</code> for Linux and macOS).
Events covered
2 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | 1 | Process creation |
| Sysmon | 13 | RegistryEvent (Value Set) |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 7 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. Field names are normalized across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (8 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (56 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 6 rules
- Displaying Hidden Files Feature Disabled
- Hiding Files with Attrib.exe
- PowerShell Logging Disabled Via Registry Key Tampering
- Registry Persistence via Service in Safe Mode
- Set Suspicious Files as System Files Using Attrib.EXE
- Use Icacls to Hide File to Everyone