Early Launch Antimalware, Boot-Start Driver Initialization Policy must prevent boot drivers.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | V-253372 | SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227 | WN11-CC-000085 | SV-253372r991589_rule | 2026-02-12 | 2 |
Description
The default behavior is for Early Launch Antimalware - Boot-Start Driver Initialization policy is to enforce "Good, unknown and bad but critical" (preventing "bad"). By being launched first by the kernel, ELAM ( Early Launch Antimalware) is ensured to be launched before any third-party software, and is therefore able to detect malware in the boot process and prevent it from initializing.
ℹ️ Check
The default behavior is for Early Launch Antimalware - Boot-Start Driver Initialization policy is to enforce "Good, unknown and bad but critical" (preventing "bad").
If the registry value name below does not exist, this is a finding.
If it exists and is configured with a value of "7", this is a finding.
Registry Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Registry Path: \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\EarlyLaunch\
Value Name: DriverLoadPolicy
Value Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1, 3, or 8
Possible values for this setting are:
8 - Good only
1 - Good and unknown
3 - Good, unknown and bad but critical
7 - All (which includes "Bad" and would be a finding)
✔️ Fix
Ensure that Early Launch Antimalware - Boot-Start Driver Initialization policy is set to enforce "Good, unknown and bad but critical" (preventing "bad").
To correct this, configure the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> System >> Early Launch Antimalware >> "Boot-Start Driver Initialization Policy" to "Enabled with "Good, unknown and bad but critical" selected.