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-220813	SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227	WN10-CC-000085	SV-220813r991589_rule	2025-02-25	3

Description
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 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)

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 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"). If this needs to be corrected 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.

✔️ Fix

Ensure that Early Launch Antimalware - Boot-Start Driver Initialization policy is set to enforce "Good, unknown and bad but critical" (preventing "bad"). If this needs to be corrected 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.