Vulnerability Discussion

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.

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.