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Interview question · Detection Engineering & Incident Response

Where does malware hide to survive a reboot on Windows, Linux and macOS, and how do defenders find and prevent persistence?

Getting in once is not enough for an attacker. Persistence is where they must leave a mark on the system, which makes it one of the best places to catch them.

mediumNewPreparation tags: CrowdStrike, Microsoft, AppleUpdated Nov 2026

Getting in once is not enough for an attacker. Persistence is where they must leave a mark on the system, which makes it one of the best places to catch them.

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  1. 01 State the assumptions your answer depends on.
  2. 02 Explain the mechanism and choose a control.
  3. 03 Name a condition that would change your decision.

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What if · the follow-ups in this answer

The answer works through 6 follow-ups like an interviewer would

After cleaning malware from a laptop, the same attacker reappears a week later, and the team suspects persistence was missed.

  1. What is persistence?
  2. Where do you look on Windows?
  3. Where do you look on Linux and macOS?
  4. What if persistence is not on the laptop at all?
  5. How do defenders find persistence reliably?
  6. How would you make sure the attacker is gone this time?

Each rung has a nudge, a model answer, the principle that carries over and the weak answer to avoid. Premium opens every answer and ladder.

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