T1490 Inhibit System Recovery

Technique

T1490

Tactics

Impact

Research, 90 days

3

KEV CVEs mapped

2

SigmaHQ rules

27

Elastic, Splunk

40

thrunt rules

0

Upstream

https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1490

MITRE description

Adversaries may delete or remove built-in data and turn off services designed to aid in the recovery of a corrupted system to prevent recovery.(Citation: Talos Olympic Destroyer 2018)(Citation: FireEye WannaCry 2017) This may deny access to available backups and recovery options. Operating systems may contain features that can help fix corrupted systems, such as a backup catalog, volume shadow copies, and automatic repair features. Adversaries may disable or delete system recovery features to augment the effects of [Data Destruction](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1485) and [Data Encrypted for Impact](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1486).(Citation: Talos Olympic Destroyer 2018)(Citation: FireEye WannaCry 2017) Furthermore, adversaries may disable recovery notifications, then corrupt backups.(Citation: disable_notif_synology_ransom) A number of native Windows utilities have been used by adversaries to disable or delete system recovery features: * <code>vssadmin.exe</code> can be used to delete all volume shadow copies on a system - <code>vssadmin.exe delete shadows /all /quiet</code> * [Windows Management Instrumentation](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1047) can be used to delete volume shadow copies - <code>wmic shadowcopy delete</code> * <code>wbadmin.exe</code> can be used to delete the Windows Backup Catalog - <code>wbadmin.exe delete catalog -quiet</code> * <code>bcdedit.exe</code> can be used to disable automatic Windows recovery features by modifying boot configuration data - <code>bcdedit.exe /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures & bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled no</code> * <code>REAgentC.exe</code> can be used to disable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) repair/recovery options of an infected system * <code>diskshadow.exe</code> can be used to delete all volume shadow copies on a system - <code>diskshadow delete shadows all</code>(Citation: Diskshadow)(Citation: Crytox Ransomware) On network devices, adversaries may leverage [Disk Wipe](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1561) to delete backup firmware images and reformat the file system, then [System Shutdown/Reboot](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1529) to reload the device. Together this activity may leave network devices completely inoperable and inhibit recovery operations. On ESXi servers, adversaries may delete or encrypt snapshots of virtual machines to support [Data Encrypted for Impact](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1486), preventing them from being leveraged as backups (e.g., via ` vim-cmd vmsvc/snapshot.removeall`).(Citation: Cybereason) Adversaries may also delete “online” backups that are connected to their network – whether via network storage media or through folders that sync to cloud services.(Citation: ZDNet Ransomware Backups 2020) In cloud environments, adversaries may disable versioning and backup policies and delete snapshots, database backups, machine images, and prior versions of objects designed to be used in disaster recovery scenarios.(Citation: Dark Reading Code Spaces Cyber Attack)(Citation: Rhino Security Labs AWS S3 Ransomware)

KEV CVEs mapped to this technique

MITRE CTID maps these KEV CVEs to this technique by hand. They are the actively exploited vulnerabilities behind this technique's KEV signal.

• CVE-2025-21391
• CVE-2023-36884

Research citing this technique

Reports and advisories from the last 90 days that cite this technique.

• 2026-10-29 Cisco Talos: IR trends Q3 2026: Actors impersonate IT help desks in vishing attacks as ransomware activity increases
• 2026-09-25 Microsoft Threat Intelligence: Storm-3168: Agentic-driven cloud attacks using compromised service principals
• 2026-09-21 Kaspersky Securelist: Group Policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware weaponizes Active Directory GPO

Detection coverage

SigmaHQ community rules

• WannaCry Ransomware Activity (emerging-threats)
• Potential Dtrack RAT Activity (emerging-threats)
• Potential Maze Ransomware Activity (emerging-threats)
• Amsi.DLL Load By Uncommon Process (threat-hunting)
• AWS S3 Bucket Versioning Disable (core)
• Time Machine Backup Deletion Attempt Via Tmutil - MacOS (core)
• Time Machine Backup Disabled Via Tmutil - MacOS (core)
• New File Exclusion Added To Time Machine Via Tmutil - MacOS (core)
• Cisco Modify Configuration (core)
• Backup Files Deleted (core)
• Suspicious Volume Shadow Copy VSS_PS.dll Load (core)
• Suspicious Volume Shadow Copy Vssapi.dll Load (core)
• Potentially Suspicious Volume Shadow Copy Vsstrace.dll Load (core)
• Delete Volume Shadow Copies Via WMI With PowerShell (core)
• Deletion of Volume Shadow Copies via WMI with PowerShell - PS Script (core)
• Boot Configuration Tampering Via Bcdedit.EXE (core)
• Copy From VolumeShadowCopy Via Cmd.EXE (core)
• Deletion of Volume Shadow Copies via WMI with PowerShell (core)
• Windows Recovery Environment Disabled Via Reagentc (core)
• System Restore Registry Modification via CommandLine (core)
• Sensitive File Access Via Volume Shadow Copy Backup (core)
• Shadow Copies Deletion Using Operating Systems Utilities (core)
• All Backups Deleted Via Wbadmin.EXE (core)
• Windows Backup Deleted Via Wbadmin.EXE (core)
• File Recovery From Backup Via Wbadmin.EXE (core)

Showing 25 of 27 community rules. the full set is tagged attack.t1490 in SigmaHQ.

Elastic and Splunk rules

• AWS S3 Bucket Configuration Deletion (elastic)
• AWS Backup Recovery Point Deleted by Unusual User (elastic)
• AWS Backup Vault Deleted or Vault Lock Removed (elastic)
• AWS EC2 EBS Snapshot Access Removed (elastic)
• AWS RDS Snapshot Deleted (elastic)
• AWS S3 Bucket MFA Delete Disabled (elastic)
• AWS S3 Object Versioning Suspended (elastic)
• Azure Compute Restore Point Collection Deleted by Unusual User (elastic)
• Azure Compute Restore Point Collections Deleted (elastic)
• Azure Compute Snapshot Deletion by Unusual User and Resource Group (elastic)
• Azure Compute Snapshot Deletions by User (elastic)
• Azure Resource Group Deleted by Unusual Principal (elastic)
• ESXi Virtual Machine Snapshot Removed (elastic)
• Third-party Backup Files Deleted via Unexpected Process (elastic)
• Backup Deletion with Wbadmin (elastic)
• Potential System Tampering via File Modification (elastic)
• Modification of Boot Configuration (elastic)
• Suspicious File Renamed via SMB (elastic)
• Potential Ransomware Note File Dropped via SMB (elastic)
• Volume Shadow Copy Deleted or Resized via VssAdmin (elastic)
• Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via PowerShell (elastic)
• Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via WMIC (elastic)
• Azure Recovery Services Resource Deleted (elastic)
• ASL AWS Disable Bucket Versioning (splunk)
• AWS Disable Bucket Versioning (splunk)

Showing 25 of 40.

Signal counts reflect the current corpus snapshot. Research citations are the technique IDs named in vendor reports and government advisories from the last 90 days; KEV mappings come from MITRE CTID. Coverage is the SigmaHQ rule inventory (core, emerging-threats, threat-hunting) at release r2026-07-01 plus Elastic and Splunk production rules. Rule bodies are not mirrored; links go upstream.