Data Corruption via Overwriting

Data Corruption via Overwriting is a destructive subtechnique under the Data Destruction technique within the Impact tactic, where adversaries deliberately modify data to render it unusable or unreliable without completely removing it. Unlike complete deletion methods, this approach involves systematically overwriting critical bytes, file headers, metadata, or content within files or databases while leaving the corrupted structure in place. Attackers may use this method to achieve operational disruption when full deletion would be detected or prevented by security controls, or when they want to maximize confusion by leaving systems appearing functional while actually compromised. The corruption can be targeted to specific data segments (such as database indexes, configuration files, or application data) or may be executed across entire storage volumes. This approach is particularly insidious as corrupted data may not trigger immediate alerts that complete destruction would, potentially delaying detection while causing significant business impact. Recovery from overwriting attacks is often more challenging than from deletion since backups may need to be validated more thoroughly to ensure uncorrupted versions are restored.