Suspicious Secure Deletion of Free Space via Cipher (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Impact

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
- T1485Data Destruction

What it detects

This rule detects cipher.exe run with the /w wipe switch, which overwrites free disk space and is abused to destroy recoverable data or securely erase attacker artifacts. Data destruction via cipher is an impact and anti-forensic technique tracked in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report. Detecting this invocation surfaces deliberate data wiping.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1485 — drag to rearrange

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Windows: cipher.exe Overwrites Deleted Data Using /w

Suspicious Secure Deletion of Free Space via Cipher (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1485 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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