MITRE ATT&CKtechnique
T1690 Prevent Command History Logging
- Domain
- enterprise
- Tactics
- Defense Impairment
- Platforms
- ESXi, Linux, macOS, Network Devices, Windows
- Version
- 1.0
- Created
- 2026-04-14
Description
Adversaries may impair command history logging to hide commands they run on a compromised system. Various command interpreters keep track of the commands users type in their terminal so that users can retrace what they have done.
On Linux and macOS, command history is tracked in a file pointed to by the environment variable `HISTFILE`. When a user logs off a system, this information is flushed to a file in the user's home directory called `~/.bash_history`. The `HISTCONTROL` environment variable keeps track of what should be saved by the history command and eventually into the `~/.bash_history` file when a user logs out. `HISTCONTROL` does not exist by default on macOS, but can be set by the user and will be respected. The `HISTFILE` environment variable is also used in some ESXi systems.
Adversaries may clear the history environment variable (`unset HISTFILE`) or set the command history size to zero (`export HISTFILESIZE=0`) to prevent logging of commands. Additionally, `HISTCONTROL` can be configured to ignore commands that start with a space by simply setting it to "ignorespace". `HISTCONTROL` can also be set to ignore duplicate commands by setting it to "ignoredups". In some Linux systems, this is set by default to "ignoreboth" which covers both of the previous examples. This means that " ls" will not be saved, but "ls" would be saved by history. Adversaries can abuse this to operate without leaving traces by simply prepending a space to all of their terminal commands.
On Windows systems, the `PSReadLine` module tracks commands used in all PowerShell sessions and writes them to a file (`$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\PSReadLine\ConsoleHost_history.txt` by default). Adversaries may change where these logs are saved using `Set-PSReadLineOption -HistorySavePath {File Path}`. This will cause `ConsoleHost_history.txt` to stop receiving logs. Additionally, it is possible to turn off logging to this file using the PowerShell command `Set-PSReadlineOption -HistorySaveStyle SaveNothing`.
Adversaries may also leverage a Network Device CLI on network devices to disable historical command logging (e.g. `no logging`).
Related
Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)
- TA0112 Defense Impairment tactic
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (2)
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · uses (13)
- S9051 The Gentlemen Ransomware software (malware)
- S9024 SPAWNCHIMERA software (malware)
- S9015 BRICKSTORM software (malware)
- G1051 Medusa Group group
- C0056 RedPenguin campaign
- S1217 VIRTUALPITA software (malware)
- G1048 UNC3886 group
- C0046 ArcaneDoor campaign
- S1186 Line Dancer software (malware)
- G1041 Sea Turtle group
- S1161 BPFDoor software (malware)
- S0692 SILENTTRINITY software (tool)
- G0082 APT38 group
References
- https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/esxi-hypervisors-malware-persistence Google Cloud Threat Intelligence ESXi VIBs 2022
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_history?view=powershell-7.6&viewFallbackFrom=powershell-7 Microsoft about_History prevent command history
- https://community.sophos.com/sophos-labs/b/blog/posts/powershell-command-history-forensics Sophos PowerShell Command History Forensics