T1146: Clear Command History
In addition to clearing system logs, an adversary may clear the command history of a compromised account to conceal the actions undertaken during an intrusion. macOS and Linux both keep track of the commands users type in their terminal so that users can retrace what they've done. These logs can be accessed in a few different ways. While logged in, this 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 benefit of this is that it allows users to go back to commands they've used before in different sessions. Since everything typed on the command-line is saved, passwords passed in on the command line are also saved. Adversaries can abuse this by searching these files for cleartext passwords. Additionally, adversaries can use a variety of methods to prevent their own commands from appear in these logs such as unset HISTFILE, export HISTFILESIZE=0, history -c, rm ~/.bash_history.
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Clear Command History
In addition to clearing system logs, an adversary may clear the command history of a compromised account to conceal the actions undertaken during an intrusion. macOS and Linux both keep track of the commands users type in their terminal so that users can retrace what they've done. These logs can be accessed in a few different ways. While logged in, this 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 benefit of this is that it allows users to go back to commands they've used before in different sessions. Since everything typed on the command-line is saved, passwords passed in on the command line are also saved. Adversaries can abuse this by searching these files for cleartext passwords. Additionally, adversaries can use a variety of methods to prevent their own commands from appear in these logs such as unset HISTFILE, export HISTFILESIZE=0, history -c, rm ~/.bash_history.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
Related techniques
This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1070.003 | Clear Command History Sub-technique | This object revoked by Clear Command History. |
All related ATT&CK context
Object version and sync metadata
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Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.1 | Current bundle Revoked | 7f51a1d39326… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
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mitre-attack T1146Open source URL
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