Individual skill
performing-malware-persistence-investigation
Systematically investigate all persistence mechanisms on Windows and Linux systems to identify how malware survives reboots and maintains access.
internal/tools/skills/data/digital-forensics/performing-malware-persistence-investigation/SKILL.md
Source commit d42f381ad34843e71a42658e5c57290c713e85af
What was checked
- Matches the observed repository HEAD
- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- Yes
- Repository scan complete
- No
- Skill scan complete
- No
- Observed behavior
- Instructions only
- Last checked
- Nov 9, 2026
These are observations at the recorded commit, not a guarantee of safety. Review the source before running it.
Install this skill
Choose an agent in your Stack or copy a command below. Commands fetch the pinned commit and copy only this skill directory. Existing destinations are refused. Copying a command does not install anything.
An install command is unavailable: current rules, complete repository and skill scans, an eligible behavior level and a permitted license are required.
Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 1,313
- Repository last updated
- Nov 8, 2026
- License
- Apache-2.0
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- cybersecurity Repository topic
- security Repository topic
- bug-bounty Repository topic
- automation Repository topic
- autonomous-pentesting Repository topic
- ai-agent Repository topic
- ai-security Repository topic
- ethical-hacking Repository topic
- golang Repository topic
- penetration-testing Repository topic
- forensics Declared skill tag
- malware-persistence Declared skill tag
- autoruns Declared skill tag
- registry Declared skill tag
- scheduled-tasks Declared skill tag
- rootkit-detection Declared skill tag
- incident-response Declared skill tag
- engineering Derived category
Files and excerpt
File metadata and permitted, redacted excerpts come from the recorded scan. Source links are pinned to that commit.
Browse files
Read excerpt
# Performing Malware Persistence Investigation
## When to Use
- When investigating how malware maintains presence on a compromised system after reboots
- During incident response to identify all persistence mechanisms for complete remediation
- For threat hunting to discover unauthorized autostart entries across endpoints
- When analyzing malware behavior to understand its persistence strategy
- For verifying that all persistence has been removed after incident remediation
## Detection Gaps & Validation
Persistence hunts fail by enumerating only the obvious autostarts. Cover the mechanisms below or you will declare a host clean while a backdoor survives:
- **Beyond Run keys / cron / systemd.** Check WMI event subscriptions (`__EventFilter` + `CommandLineEventConsumer` bindings in `OBJECTS.DATA`), COM hijacks (`CLSID\...\InprocServer32` pointing to temp/appdata DLLs), DLL search-order hijacking, IFEO `Debugger` values, screensaver/`Winlogon\Userinit`/`Shell` keys, and services with `ServiceDLL`. On Linux, check `LD_PRELOAD`/`/etc/ld.so.preload`, PAM modules (`pam_exec`), `~/.bashrc`/`/etc/profile.d`, `authorized_keys`, udev rules, systemd timers, and malicious kernel modules — not just crontab.