Definition
Detecting any suspicious changes to files in a computer system.
How it Works
There are a number of tools in Windows and Unix that can monitor specific files in a system and generate alerts if any artifacts have been created, modified, or removed. They accomplish this by comparing the current artifacts to a previous snapshot.
Unix - Unix systems have a file integrity checker tool called tripwire. Tripwire first initializes a database that serves as a basis for comparison and can then scan the system to compare the state of the current file system against the initial baseline database. Additionally, users can define policies that specify potential violations.
Windows - In Microsoft Azure, file integrity monitoring can be enabled which can track file and registry key creation, removals, and modifications of specific files.
Considerations
Files can change constantly due to the non-static nature of a computer system. File Integrity Monitoring works best when pointed at a narrow scope of critical files to limit the number of unnecessary files that may be modified over the course of normal use. The accuracy and precision of defined policies also affect the efficacy of this technique.
Implementation perspective
File Integrity Monitoring should be treated as a technical defensive capability rather than a product checkbox. In practice, teams should define the protected scope, the conditions under which the technique acts, and the observable evidence that demonstrates the intended behavior. For this technique, likely engineering context includes File.
Use the technique to identify suspicious, unauthorized, or abnormal activity through observable evidence and repeatable analysis.
Questions to ask
- Which events, states, or artifacts must be observed for the analysis to work?
- What analytic logic, threshold, comparison, or signature turns observations into a finding?
- How are expected false positives, blind spots, and environmental variations documented?
- Who receives the result, and what action is expected when the technique produces a finding?
Evidence and validation
- Telemetry and data-source configuration records
- Analytic logic, thresholds, signatures, and version history
- Test cases demonstrating expected positive and negative results
- Alert, triage, escalation, and tuning records
Common failure patterns
- Required telemetry is missing, delayed, or transformed in a way that invalidates the analysis.
- The technique produces alerts without an accountable triage and response process.
- Detection coverage is claimed from product deployment without testing the relevant analytic behavior.
This implementation perspective is original Bare Metal Cyber educational content. It does not replace the official D3FEND definition or establish that a specific product implements the technique.
Technique hierarchy
Top-level family
Parent techniques
Direct child techniques
None listed at this level.
Artifacts and ontology entities
These relationships describe how D3FEND connects a defensive technique to artifacts or other ontology entities. They describe graph semantics, not a product certification.
Explicit technique relationships
Show inferred artifact relationship paths (1)
Offensive-technique relationships
These relationships are generated from D3FEND graph paths and are explicitly experimental. They should be treated as hypotheses for defensive analysis—not as proof that the technique prevents, detects, or removes an offensive behavior.
ATT&CK Enterprise (99)
Showing the first 60 of 99 source-derived relationships. Open the official D3FEND technique for the current graph view.
ATT&CK for ICS (8)
Authoritative sources
- Open this technique on the official D3FEND website ↗
- Open the official ontology resources ↗
- File Integrity Monitoring in Microsoft Defender for Cloud ↗Microsoft · UserManualReference
- Reference - Tripwire ↗UserManualReference
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