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M365 or Entra ID Identity Sign-in from a Suspicious Source
Dec 10, 2025 · Domain: Cloud Domain: SaaS Data Source: Azure Data Source: Entra ID Data Source: Entra ID Sign-in Logs Data Source: Microsoft 365 Data Source: Microsoft 365 Audit Logs Use Case: Identity and Access Audit Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Initial Access Resources: Investigation Guide Rule Type: Higher-Order Rule ·This rule correlate Entra-ID or Microsoft 365 mail successful sign-in events with network security alerts by source address. Adversaries may trigger some network security alerts such as reputation or other anomalies before accessing cloud resources.
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Identifies process execution events where the command line value contains a long sequence of whitespace characters or multiple occurrences of contiguous whitespace. Attackers may attempt to evade signature-based detections by padding their malicious command with unnecessary whitespace characters. These observations should be investigated for malicious behavior.
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This rule detects potential initial access activity where an adversary uploads a web shell or malicious script to a web server via a file upload mechanism (e.g., through a web form using multipart/form-data), followed by a GET or POST request to access the uploaded file. By checking the body content of HTTP requests for file upload indicators such as "Content-Disposition: form-data" and "filename=", the rule identifies suspicious upload activities. This sequence of actions is commonly used by attackers to gain and maintain access to compromised web servers.
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Through the new_terms rule type, this rule detects potential HTTP downgrade attacks by identifying HTTP traffic that uses a different HTTP version than the one typically used in the environment. An HTTP downgrade attack occurs when an attacker forces a connection via an older HTTP version, resulting in potentially less secure communication. For example, an attacker might downgrade a connection from HTTP/2 to HTTP/1.1 or HTTP/1.0 to exploit known vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the older protocol versions.
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This rule detects potential Local File Inclusion (LFI) activity on web servers by identifying HTTP GET requests that attempt to access sensitive local files through directory traversal techniques or known file paths. Attackers may exploit LFI vulnerabilities to read sensitive files, gain system information, or further compromise the server.
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This rule detects potential Remote File Inclusion (RFI) activity on web servers by identifying HTTP GET requests that attempt to access sensitive remote files through directory traversal techniques or known file paths. Attackers may exploit RFI vulnerabilities to read sensitive files, gain system information, or further compromise the server.
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Adversaries may modify the standard authentication module for persistence via patching the normal authorization process or modifying the login configuration to allow unauthorized access or elevate privileges.
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This rule detects suspicious child process activity from a React server application. This could be related to successful exploitation of CVE-2025-55182 or CVE-2025-66478. These vulnerabilities allow attackers to execute remote code due to insecure deserialization of React Server Components (RSC) Flight payloads, leading to unauthenticated RCE on servers running React 19.x or Next.js 14.3.0-canary+, 15.x, and 16.x with the App Router enabled
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AWS EC2 LOLBin Execution via SSM SendCommand
Dec 5, 2025 · Domain: Cloud Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Execution Tactic: Command and Control Data Source: AWS Data Source: Amazon Web Services Data Source: AWS CloudTrail Data Source: AWS EC2 Data Source: AWS SSM Data Source: AWS Systems Manager Data Source: Elastic Defend Resources: Investigation Guide ·Identifies the execution of Living Off the Land Binaries (LOLBins) or GTFOBins on EC2 instances via AWS Systems Manager (SSM)
SendCommandAPI. This detection correlates AWS CloudTrailSendCommandevents with endpoint process execution by matching SSM command IDs. While AWS redacts command parameters in CloudTrail logs, this correlation technique reveals the actual commands executed on EC2 instances. Adversaries may abuse SSM to execute malicious commands remotely without requiring SSH or RDP access, using legitimate system utilities for data exfiltration, establishing reverse shells, or lateral movement.
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Detects when GenAI tools access sensitive files such as cloud credentials, SSH keys, browser password databases, or shell configurations. Attackers leverage GenAI agents to systematically locate and exfiltrate credentials, API keys, and tokens. Access to credential stores (.aws/credentials, .ssh/id_*) suggests harvesting, while writes to shell configs (.bashrc, .zshrc) indicate persistence attempts. Note: On linux only creation events are available. Access events are not yet implemented.
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GenAI Process Compiling or Generating Executables
Dec 5, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: macOS OS: Windows Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Execution Tactic: Defense Evasion Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: Auditd Manager Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Data Source: SentinelOne Resources: Investigation Guide Domain: LLM Mitre Atlas: T0053 ·Detects when GenAI tools spawn compilers or packaging tools to generate executables. Attackers leverage local LLMs to autonomously generate and compile malware, droppers, or implants. Python packaging tools (pyinstaller, nuitka, pyarmor) are particularly high-risk as they create standalone executables that can be deployed without dependencies. This rule focuses on compilation activity that produces output binaries, filtering out inspection-only operations.
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Detects when GenAI tools connect to domains using suspicious TLDs commonly abused for malware C2 infrastructure. TLDs like .top, .xyz, .ml, .cf, .onion are frequently used in phishing and malware campaigns. Legitimate GenAI services use well-established domains (.com, .ai, .io), so connections to suspicious TLDs may indicate compromised tools, malicious plugins, or AI-generated code connecting to attacker infrastructure.
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Detects GenAI tools connecting to unusual domains on macOS. Adversaries may compromise GenAI tools through prompt injection, malicious MCP servers, or poisoned plugins to establish C2 channels or exfiltrate sensitive data to attacker-controlled infrastructure. AI agents with network access can be manipulated to beacon to external servers, download malicious payloads, or transmit harvested credentials and documents.
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GenAI Process Performing Encoding/Chunking Prior to Network Activity
Dec 5, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: macOS OS: Windows Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Exfiltration Tactic: Defense Evasion Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Data Source: SentinelOne Resources: Investigation Guide Domain: LLM Mitre Atlas: T0086 ·Detects when GenAI processes perform encoding or chunking (base64, gzip, tar, zip) followed by outbound network activity. This sequence indicates data preparation for exfiltration. Attackers encode or compress sensitive data before transmission to obfuscate contents and evade detection. Legitimate GenAI workflows rarely encode data before network communications.
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Detects unusual modification of GenAI tool configuration files. Adversaries may inject malicious MCP server configurations to hijack AI agents for persistence, C2, or data exfiltration. Attack vectors include malware or scripts directly poisoning config files, supply chain attacks via compromised dependencies, and prompt injection attacks that abuse the GenAI tool itself to modify its own configuration. Unauthorized MCP servers added to these configs execute arbitrary commands when the AI tool is next invoked.
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This rule detects unusual spikes in error logs from web servers, which may indicate reconnaissance activities such as vulnerability scanning or fuzzing attempts by adversaries. These activities often generate a high volume of error responses as they probe for weaknesses in web applications. Error response codes may potentially indicate server-side issues that could be exploited.
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This rule detects potential web server discovery or fuzzing activity by identifying a high volume of HTTP GET requests resulting in 404 or 403 status codes from a single source IP address within a short timeframe. Such patterns may indicate that an attacker is attempting to discover hidden or unlinked resources on a web server, which can be a precursor to more targeted attacks.
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This rule detects potential command injection attempts via web server requests by identifying URLs that contain suspicious patterns commonly associated with command execution payloads. Attackers may exploit vulnerabilities in web applications to inject and execute arbitrary commands on the server, often using interpreters like Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, or shell commands. By monitoring for these indicators in web traffic, security teams can identify and respond to potential threats early.
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This rule detects unusual spikes in error response codes (500, 502, 503, 504) from web servers, which may indicate reconnaissance activities such as vulnerability scanning or fuzzing attempts by adversaries. These activities often generate a high volume of error responses as they probe for weaknesses in web applications. Error response codes may potentially indicate server-side issues that could be exploited.
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This rule detects unusual spikes in web server requests with uncommon or suspicious user-agent strings. Such activity may indicate reconnaissance attempts by attackers trying to identify vulnerabilities in web applications or servers. These user-agents are often associated with automated tools used for scanning, vulnerability assessment, or brute-force attacks.
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Multiple Cloud Secrets Accessed by Source Address
Dec 4, 2025 · Domain: Cloud Domain: IAM Domain: Storage Data Source: AWS Data Source: Amazon Web Services Data Source: AWS Secrets Manager Data Source: Azure Data Source: Azure Activity Logs Data Source: GCP Data Source: Google Cloud Platform Tactic: Credential Access Resources: Investigation Guide ·This rule detects authenticated sessions accessing secret stores across multiple cloud providers from the same source address within a short period of time. Adversaries with access to compromised credentials or session tokens may attempt to retrieve secrets from services such as AWS Secrets Manager, Google Secret Manager, or Azure Key Vault in rapid succession to expand their access or exfiltrate sensitive information.
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This rule detects the execution of Node.js pre or post-install scripts. These scripts are executed by the Node.js package manager (npm) during the installation of packages. Adversaries may abuse this technique to execute arbitrary commands on the system and establish persistence. This activity was observed in the wild as part of the Shai-Hulud worm.
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Credential Access via TruffleHog Execution
Dec 2, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: Windows OS: macOS Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Credential Access Data Source: Elastic Endgame Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Windows Security Event Logs Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: SentinelOne Data Source: Crowdstrike Data Source: Auditd Manager Resources: Investigation Guide ·This rule detects the execution of TruffleHog, a tool used to search for high-entropy strings and secrets in code repositories, which may indicate an attempt to access credentials. This tool was abused by the Shai-Hulud worm to search for credentials in code repositories.
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Curl or Wget Spawned via Node.js
Dec 2, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: Windows OS: macOS Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Command and Control Resources: Investigation Guide Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Elastic Endgame Data Source: Windows Security Event Logs Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: SentinelOne Data Source: Crowdstrike Data Source: Auditd Manager ·This rule detects when Node.js, directly or via a shell, spawns the curl or wget command. This may indicate command and control behavior. Adversaries may use Node.js to download additional tools or payloads onto the system.
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Execution via GitHub Actions Runner
Dec 2, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: Windows OS: macOS Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Execution Tactic: Initial Access Data Source: Elastic Endgame Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Windows Security Event Logs Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: SentinelOne Data Source: Crowdstrike Data Source: Auditd Manager Resources: Investigation Guide ·This rule detects potentially dangerous commands spawned by the GitHub Actions Runner.Worker process on self-hosted runner machines. Adversaries who gain the ability to modify or trigger workflows in a linked GitHub repository can execute arbitrary commands on the runner host. This behavior may indicate malicious or unexpected workflow activity, including code execution, file manipulation, or network exfiltration initiated through a compromised repository or unauthorized workflow.
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Remote GitHub Actions Runner Registration
Dec 2, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: Windows OS: macOS Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Execution Tactic: Initial Access Data Source: Elastic Endgame Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Windows Security Event Logs Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: SentinelOne Data Source: Crowdstrike Data Source: Auditd Manager Resources: Investigation Guide ·This rule detects the configuration of a GitHub Actions self-hosted runner using the Runner.Listener binary. When a machine is registered to a remote repository, its owner gains the ability to execute arbitrary workflow commands on that host. Unexpected or unauthorized runner registration may indicate adversarial activity aimed at establishing remote code execution via malicious GitHub workflows.
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This rule detects processes spawned by GitHub Actions runners where "RUNNER_TRACKING_ID" is overridden from its default "github_*" value. Such tampering has been associated with attempts to evade runner tracking/cleanup on self-hosted runners, including behavior observed in the Shai-Hulud 2.0 npm worm campaign.
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Potential Secret Scanning via Gitleaks
Dec 2, 2025 · Domain: Endpoint OS: Linux OS: Windows OS: macOS Use Case: Threat Detection Tactic: Credential Access Data Source: Elastic Endgame Data Source: Elastic Defend Data Source: Windows Security Event Logs Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Data Source: Sysmon Data Source: SentinelOne Data Source: Crowdstrike Data Source: Auditd Manager Resources: Investigation Guide ·This rule detects the execution of Gitleaks, a tool used to search for high-entropy strings and secrets in code repositories, which may indicate an attempt to access credentials.
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This rule detects the creation of privileged containers that mount host directories into the container's filesystem. Such configurations can be exploited by attackers to escape the container isolation and gain access to the host system, potentially leading to privilege escalation and lateral movement within the environment.
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This rule correlate any Elastic Defend alert with a set of suspicious events from Network security devices like Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Fortinet Fortigate by host.ip and source.ip. This may indicate that this host is compromised and triggering multi-datasource alerts.
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Alerts in Different ATT&CK Tactics by Host
This rule uses alert data to determine when multiple alerts in different phases of an attack involving the same host are triggered and where the accumulated risk score is higher than a defined threshold. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as these hosts are more likely to be compromised.
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Multiple Elastic Defend Alerts by Agent
This rule uses alert data to determine when multiple alerts from Elastic Defend involving the same host are triggered. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as these hosts are more likely to be compromised.
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This rule correlates any Elastic Defend alert with an email security related alert by target user name. This may indicate the successful execution of a phishing attack.
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This detection correlates Palo Alto Networks (PANW) command and control events with Elastic Defend network events to identify the source process performing the network activity.
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This detection correlates FortiGate's application control SOCKS events with Elastic Defend network event to identify the source process performing SOCKS traffic. Adversaries may use a connection proxy to direct network traffic between systems or act as an intermediary for network communications to a command and control server to avoid direct connections to their infrastructure.
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Agent Spoofing - Multiple Hosts Using Same Agent
Detects when multiple hosts are using the same agent ID. This could occur in the event of an agent being taken over and used to inject illegitimate documents into an instance as an attempt to spoof events in order to masquerade actual activity to evade detection.
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Agent Spoofing - Mismatched Agent ID
Detects events that have a mismatch on the expected event agent ID. The status "agent_id_mismatch/mismatch" occurs when the expected agent ID associated with the API key does not match the actual agent ID in an event. This could indicate attempts to spoof events in order to masquerade actual activity to evade detection.
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This rule detects potential exploitation of CVE-2025-48384 via Git. This vulnerability allows attackers to execute arbitrary code by leveraging Git's recursive clone feature to fetch and execute malicious scripts from a remote repository.
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Identifies the Elastic endpoint agent has stopped and is no longer running on the host. Adversaries may attempt to disable security monitoring tools in an attempt to evade detection or prevention capabilities during an intrusion. This may also indicate an issue with the agent itself and should be addressed to ensure defensive measures are back in a stable state.
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Identifies newly seen removable devices by device.serial_number and host.id using the Elastic Defend device mount events. While this activity is not inherently malicious, analysts can use those events to aid monitoring for data exfiltration over those devices.
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This rule uses alert data to determine when a malware signature is triggered in multiple hosts. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as this can potentially indicate a widespread malware infection.
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A sudoers file specifies the commands that users or groups can run and from which terminals. Adversaries can take advantage of these configurations to execute commands as other users or spawn processes with higher privileges.
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Multiple Alerts in Different ATT&CK Tactics on a Single Host
This rule uses alert data to determine when multiple alerts in different phases of an attack involving the same host are triggered. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as these hosts are more likely to be compromised.
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The hosts file on endpoints is used to control manual IP address to hostname resolutions. The hosts file is the first point of lookup for DNS hostname resolution so if adversaries can modify the endpoint hosts file, they can route traffic to malicious infrastructure. This rule detects modifications to the hosts file on Microsoft Windows, Linux (Ubuntu or RHEL) and macOS systems.
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Identifies the execution of a Chromium based browser with the debugging process argument, which may indicate an attempt to steal authentication cookies. An adversary may steal web application or service session cookies and use them to gain access web applications or Internet services as an authenticated user without needing credentials.
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Identifies the deletion of WebServer access logs. This may indicate an attempt to evade detection or destroy forensic evidence on a system.
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Identifies a potential forced authentication using related SMB named pipes. Attackers may attempt to force targets to authenticate to a host controlled by them to capture hashes or enable relay attacks.
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Identifies suspicious file download activity from a Google Drive URL. This could indicate an attempt to deliver phishing payloads via a trusted webservice.
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Identifies an outbound network connection by JAVA to LDAP, RMI or DNS standard ports followed by a suspicious JAVA child processes. This may indicate an attempt to exploit a JAVA/NDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface) injection vulnerability.
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Identifies the use of the AWS Systems Manager (SSM)
SendCommandAPI with the eitherAWS-RunShellScriptorAWS-RunPowerShellScriptparameters. TheSendCommandAPI call allows users to execute commands on EC2 instances using the SSM service. Adversaries may use this technique to execute commands on EC2 instances without the need for SSH or RDP access. This behavior may indicate an adversary attempting to execute commands on an EC2 instance for malicious purposes. This is a New Terms rule that only flags when this behavior is observed for the first time on a host in the last 7 days.
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Both ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc are files containing shell commands that are run when Bash is invoked. These files are executed in a user's context, either interactively or non-interactively, when a user logs in so that their environment is set correctly. Adversaries may abuse this to establish persistence by executing malicious content triggered by a user’s shell.
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Identifies the execution of and EggShell Backdoor. EggShell is a known post exploitation tool for macOS and Linux.
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This rules identifies a process created from an executable with a space appended to the end of the filename. This may indicate an attempt to masquerade a malicious file as benign to gain user execution. When a space is added to the end of certain files, the OS will execute the file according to it's true filetype instead of it's extension. Adversaries can hide a program's true filetype by changing the extension of the file. They can then add a space to the end of the name so that the OS automatically executes the file when it's double-clicked.
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Multiple Alerts Involving a User
This rule uses alert data to determine when multiple different alerts involving the same user are triggered. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as these users are more likely to be compromised.
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This rule helps you test and practice using alerts with Elastic Security as you get set up. It’s not a sign of threat activity.
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Identifies potentially malicious processes communicating via a port paring typically not associated with SSH. For example, SSH over port 2200 or port 2222 as opposed to the traditional port 22. Adversaries may make changes to the standard port a protocol uses to bypass filtering or muddle analysis/parsing of network data.
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A sudoers file specifies the commands users or groups can run and from which terminals. Adversaries can take advantage of these configurations to execute commands as other users or spawn processes with higher privileges.
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Identifies the execution of a Python script that uses the ROT cipher for letters substitution. Adversaries may use this method to encode and obfuscate part of their malicious code in legit python packages.
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The Secure Shell (SSH) authorized_keys file specifies which users are allowed to log into a server using public key authentication. Adversaries may modify it to maintain persistence on a victim host by adding their own public key(s).
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Identifies the attempted use of a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability for the Sudo binary in Unix-like systems (CVE-2021-3156). Successful exploitation allows an unprivileged user to escalate to the root user.
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An adversary may add the setuid or setgid bit to a file or directory in order to run a file with the privileges of the owning user or group. An adversary can take advantage of this to either do a shell escape or exploit a vulnerability in an application with the setuid or setgid bit to get code running in a different user’s context. Additionally, adversaries can use this mechanism on their own malware to make sure they're able to execute in elevated contexts in the future.
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Adversaries may attempt to clear or disable the Bash command-line history in an attempt to evade detection or forensic investigations.
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Timestomping is an anti-forensics technique which is used to modify the timestamps of a file, often to mimic files that are in the same folder.
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An adversary may attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware. This rule identifies common locations used to discover virtual machine hardware by a non-root user. This technique has been used by the Pupy RAT and other malware.
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Zoom Meeting with no Passcode
This rule identifies Zoom meetings that are created without a passcode. Meetings without a passcode are susceptible to Zoombombing. Zoombombing is carried out by taking advantage of Zoom sessions that are not protected with a passcode. Zoombombing refers to the unwanted, disruptive intrusion, generally by Internet trolls and hackers, into a video conference call. In a typical Zoombombing incident, a teleconferencing session is hijacked by the insertion of material that is lewd, obscene, racist, or antisemitic in nature, typically resulting of the shutdown of the session.
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Identifies the use of the grep command to discover known third-party macOS and Linux security tools, such as Antivirus or Host Firewall details.
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Identifies the execution of a shell process with suspicious arguments which may be indicative of reverse shell activity.
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