A0002: Human-Machine Interface (HMI)

An HMI is the operator’s window into an industrial process and, in many environments, a control point for changing parameters. That makes it a business-critical asset: loss of visibility, misleading displays, unauthorized control actions, or alarm manipulation can directly affect operational resilience and safety decisions. For leaders, the key issue is not just whether the HMI exists, but whether the organization can prove who can access it, what changes are logged, how it is monitored, and how operations continue if it becomes unavailable or untrusted.

Executive priority

Treat HMIs as priority ICS assets for resilience, audit evidence, and incident decision-making. The supplied ATT&CK relationships show HMIs can be targeted by behaviors involving process-state monitoring, GUI/CLI access, discovery, network sniffing, removable media, masquerading, rootkits, screen capture, alarm-setting modification, denial of service, restart/shutdown, and data destruction. Executives should ask whether HMI access paths, alarm integrity, backup/restore procedures, removable-media handling, and network visibility are explicitly tested in OT security reviews and incident response exercises.

Technical view

This object is an ICS asset, not a technique, and MITRE does not provide detection guidance for it. SOC, OT security, and IR teams should validate HMI coverage around the supplied platforms, Linux and Windows, and the relationship set. Practical validation should include authentication and session evidence for local and remote GUI/CLI access, OS and application logs, HMI configuration and alarm-change records, process/OPC/historian-related visibility where available, network communications to control/SCADA servers and field devices, discovery/scan indicators, removable-media activity, file/process anomalies consistent with masquerading or scripting, and availability events such as unexpected shutdown, restart, or denial-of-service conditions.

Likely telemetry

HMI operating system security, system, application, process, service, and command-line logs on Windows or Linux
HMI application logs, operator action logs, configuration-change records, and alarm-setting change records
Authentication, authorization, and session records for local access, remote GUI access, and CLI access
Network flow, packet, and protocol telemetry between HMIs, control/SCADA servers, historians, OPC sources, and other ICS devices
Discovery-related telemetry such as port scans, broadcast discovery, multicast discovery, and remote system enumeration

Detection direction

Because MITRE provides no official detection text for this asset, start by building a local HMI behavior baseline: expected users, expected remote-access paths, expected peer systems, expected protocols, expected vendor applications, and normal alarm/configuration workflows.
Tune monitoring for relationship-driven scenarios: process-state collection, GUI or CLI access, network sniffing, discovery, rogue master-like communications, alarm setting changes, screen capture, removable-media execution, unexpected restart/shutdown, denial-of-service symptoms, and destructive file activity.
Correlate host and network evidence. HMI compromise or misuse may appear as legitimate-looking operator actions unless paired with identity, session, change-management, and network context.
Review false positives carefully in OT environments. Engineering maintenance, vendor support, firmware work, and operator troubleshooting can resemble discovery, scripting, GUI access, CLI use, or configuration changes.
Identify blind spots that commonly decide coverage: unmanaged HMI hosts, limited endpoint agents in OT, missing HMI application audit logs, remote-access tools outside SOC visibility, lack of packet/flow monitoring on control networks, and incomplete removable-media logging.

Mitigation priorities

Prioritize asset ownership and criticality: maintain an inventory of HMI systems, operating systems, connected control/SCADA dependencies, users, and remote-access methods.
Restrict and review HMI access paths, including local accounts, remote GUI access, CLI access, vendor support access, and removable-media use.
Protect HMI integrity with change control for application configuration, alarm settings, operator displays, and authorized software.
Segment and monitor HMI communications so expected control/SCADA relationships are known and deviations can be investigated.
Prepare operational resilience procedures for HMI outage or loss of trust, including backup/restore, alternate operator visibility, and incident escalation paths.

Additional notes and limits

The relationship context is broad and makes the HMI a high-value defensive focal point rather than a single behavior. The most useful Glexia assessment work would map each local HMI to its normal users, software, network peers, alarm/configuration workflow, and recovery dependencies, then test whether SOC and OT teams can distinguish authorized engineering activity from suspicious activity.

This take is based only on the supplied ATT&CK asset record, external references, and relationships. The object has no ATT&CK tactics and no official detection guidance. The supplied relationships indicate techniques that target HMIs, but they do not prove activity in any specific environment, vendor product, or customer network. Local architecture, HMI software, logging configuration, safety requirements, and operational procedures are required to determine actual risk and coverage.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Human-Machine Interface (HMI)

Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) are systems used by an operator to monitor the real-time status of an operational process and to perform necessary control functions, including the adjustment of device parameters. An HMI can take various forms, including a dedicated screen or control panel integrated with a specific device/controller, or a customizable software GUI application running on a standard operating system (e.g., MS Windows) that interfaces with a control/SCADA server. The HMI is critical to ensuring operators have sufficient visibility and control over the operational process.

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

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.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

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.

Filter related techniques57 rows

Domain	ID	Name	Relationship / procedure
ICS	T0816	Device Restart/Shutdown	Device Restart/Shutdown targets this object.
ICS	T0807	Command-Line Interface	Command-Line Interface targets this object.
ICS	T0800	Activate Firmware Update Mode	Activate Firmware Update Mode targets this object.
ICS	T0878	Alarm Suppression	Alarm Suppression targets this object.
ICS	T1691.002	Reporting MessageSub-technique	Reporting Message targets this object.
ICS	T0838	Modify Alarm Settings	Modify Alarm Settings targets this object.
ICS	T0823	Graphical User Interface	Graphical User Interface targets this object.
ICS	T0866	Exploitation of Remote Services	Exploitation of Remote Services targets this object.
ICS	T0874	Hooking	Hooking targets this object.
ICS	T0847	Replication Through Removable Media	Replication Through Removable Media targets this object.
ICS	T1694	Insecure Credentials	Insecure Credentials targets this object.
ICS	T1692.002	Reporting MessageSub-technique	Reporting Message targets this object.
ICS	T0848	Rogue Master	Rogue Master targets this object.
ICS	T0881	Service Stop	Service Stop targets this object.
ICS	T0801	Monitor Process State	Monitor Process State targets this object.
ICS	T0840	Network Connection Enumeration	Network Connection Enumeration targets this object.
ICS	T0888	Remote System Information Discovery	Remote System Information Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0846.001	Port ScanSub-technique	Port Scan targets this object.
ICS	T0863	User Execution	User Execution targets this object.
ICS	T0884	Connection Proxy	Connection Proxy targets this object.
ICS	T0834	Native API	Native API targets this object.
ICS	T0830	Adversary-in-the-Middle	Adversary-in-the-Middle targets this object.
ICS	T0846.002	Broadcast DiscoverySub-technique	Broadcast Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0849	Masquerading	Masquerading targets this object.
ICS	T0890	Exploitation for Privilege Escalation	Exploitation for Privilege Escalation targets this object.
ICS	T0871	Execution through API	Execution through API targets this object.
ICS	T0872	Indicator Removal on Host	Indicator Removal on Host targets this object.
ICS	T0814	Denial of Service	Denial of Service targets this object.
ICS	T0893	Data from Local System	Data from Local System targets this object.
ICS	T0842	Network Sniffing	Network Sniffing targets this object.
ICS	T0859	Valid Accounts	Valid Accounts targets this object.
ICS	T0869	Standard Application Layer Protocol	Standard Application Layer Protocol targets this object.
ICS	T0886	Remote Services	Remote Services targets this object.
ICS	T1692.001	Command MessageSub-technique	Command Message targets this object.
ICS	T1693.001	System FirmwareSub-technique	System Firmware targets this object.
ICS	T1692	Unauthorized Message	Unauthorized Message targets this object.
ICS	T0851	Rootkit	Rootkit targets this object.
ICS	T1694.001	Default CredentialsSub-technique	Default Credentials targets this object.
ICS	T0894	System Binary Proxy Execution	System Binary Proxy Execution targets this object.
ICS	T1695.001	Serial COMSub-technique	Serial COM targets this object.
ICS	T0852	Screen Capture	Screen Capture targets this object.
ICS	T0806	Brute Force I/O	Brute Force I/O targets this object.
ICS	T0820	Exploitation for Evasion	Exploitation for Evasion targets this object.
ICS	T1695.002	EthernetSub-technique	Ethernet targets this object.
ICS	T0892	Change Credential	Change Credential targets this object.
ICS	T1691.001	Command MessageSub-technique	Command Message targets this object.
ICS	T0846.003	Multicast DiscoverySub-technique	Multicast Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0846	Remote System Discovery	Remote System Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0862	Supply Chain Compromise	Supply Chain Compromise targets this object.
ICS	T0853	Scripting	Scripting targets this object.
ICS	T0885	Commonly Used Port	Commonly Used Port targets this object.
ICS	T0861	Point & Tag Identification	Point & Tag Identification targets this object.
ICS	T0809	Data Destruction	Data Destruction targets this object.
ICS	T1695.003	Wi-FiSub-technique	Wi-Fi targets this object.
ICS	T1691	Block Operational Technology Message	Block Operational Technology Message targets this object.
ICS	T1695	Block Communications	Block Communications targets this object.
ICS	T0895	Autorun Image	Autorun Image targets this object.

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates.

ATT&CK release: 19.1
Object version: 1.1
Created: Sep 28, 2023, 14:38 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Modified: May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Raw hash: 25b9614ccf5c7d66...

Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(1)

Release	Bundle imported	Object version	Modified	Status	Raw hash
19.1	Jul 14, 2026, 09:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.1	May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Current bundle	`25b9614ccf5c…`

Raw source

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.

Open mirrored raw JSON Open MITRE-hosted copy

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

[1]
IEC February 2019
IEC 2019, February Security for industrial automation and control systems - Part 4-2: Technical security requirements for IACS components Retrieved. 2020/09/25
Open source URL
[2]
mitre-attackA0002
Open source URL

Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.

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