Network Activity Detected via cat

  1[metadata]
  2creation_date = "2023/09/04"
  3integration = ["endpoint"]
  4maturity = "production"
  5updated_date = "2025/02/04"
  6
  7[transform]
  8[[transform.osquery]]
  9label = "Osquery - Retrieve Listening Ports"
 10query = "SELECT pid, address, port, socket, protocol, path FROM listening_ports"
 11
 12[[transform.osquery]]
 13label = "Osquery - Retrieve Open Sockets"
 14query = "SELECT pid, family, remote_address, remote_port, socket, state FROM process_open_sockets"
 15
 16[[transform.osquery]]
 17label = "Osquery - Retrieve Information for a Specific User"
 18query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = {{user.name}}"
 19
 20[[transform.osquery]]
 21label = "Osquery - Investigate the Account Authentication Status"
 22query = "SELECT * FROM logged_in_users WHERE user = {{user.name}}"
 23
 24[[transform.osquery]]
 25label = "Osquery - Retrieve Running Processes by User"
 26query = "SELECT pid, username, name FROM processes p JOIN users u ON u.uid = p.uid ORDER BY username"
 27
 28[[transform.osquery]]
 29label = "Osquery - Retrieve Process Info"
 30query = "SELECT name, cmdline, parent, path, uid FROM processes"
 31
 32
 33[rule]
 34author = ["Elastic"]
 35description = """
 36This rule monitors for the execution of the cat command, followed by a connection attempt by the same process. Cat is
 37capable of transfering data via tcp/udp channels by redirecting its read output to a /dev/tcp or /dev/udp channel. This
 38activity is highly suspicious, and should be investigated. Attackers may leverage this capability to transfer tools or
 39files to another host in the network or exfiltrate data while attempting to evade detection in the process.
 40"""
 41from = "now-9m"
 42index = ["logs-endpoint.events.network*", "logs-endpoint.events.process*"]
 43language = "eql"
 44license = "Elastic License v2"
 45name = "Network Activity Detected via cat"
 46note = """## Triage and analysis
 47
 48### Investigating Network Activity Detected via cat
 49
 50Attackers may leverage the `cat` utility in conjunction with a listener to read all bytes of a file, and output the content to a `/dev/tcp` or `/dev/udp` channel to transfer/exfiltrate file contents to a remote system. 
 51
 52This rule looks for a sequence of a `cat` execution event followed by a network connection attempt by the same `cat` process. 
 53
 54> **Note**:
 55> This investigation guide uses the [Osquery Markdown Plugin](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/invest-guide-run-osquery.html) introduced in Elastic Stack version 8.5.0. Older Elastic Stack versions will display unrendered Markdown in this guide.
 56> This investigation guide uses [placeholder fields](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/osquery-placeholder-fields.html) to dynamically pass alert data into Osquery queries. Placeholder fields were introduced in Elastic Stack version 8.7.0. If you're using Elastic Stack version 8.6.0 or earlier, you'll need to manually adjust this investigation guide's queries to ensure they properly run.
 57
 58#### Possible investigation steps
 59
 60- Identify any signs of suspicious network activity or anomalies that may indicate command and control activity or data exfiltration. This could include unexpected traffic patterns or unusual network behavior.
 61  - Investigate listening ports and open sockets to look for potential protocol tunneling, reverse shells, or data exfiltration.
 62    - $osquery_0
 63    - $osquery_1
 64- Identify the user account that performed the action, analyze it, and check whether it should perform this kind of action.
 65  - $osquery_2
 66- Investigate whether the user is currently logged in and active.
 67  - $osquery_3
 68- Investigate the script execution chain (parent process tree) for unknown processes. Examine their executable files for prevalence and whether they are located in expected locations.
 69  - $osquery_4
 70  - $osquery_5
 71- Investigate other alerts associated with the user/host during the past 48 hours.
 72  - If scripts or executables were dropped, retrieve the files and determine if they are malicious:
 73    - Use a private sandboxed malware analysis system to perform analysis.
 74      - Observe and collect information about the following activities:
 75        - Attempts to contact external domains and addresses.
 76          - Check if the domain is newly registered or unexpected.
 77          - Check the reputation of the domain or IP address.
 78        - File access, modification, and creation activities.
 79
 80### Related rules
 81
 82- Suspicious Network Activity to the Internet by Previously Unknown Executable - 53617418-17b4-4e9c-8a2c-8deb8086ca4b
 83
 84### False positive analysis
 85
 86- If this activity is related to new benign software installation activity, consider adding exceptions — preferably with a combination of user and command line conditions.
 87- Try to understand the context of the execution by thinking about the user, machine, or business purpose. A small number of endpoints, such as servers with unique software, might appear unusual but satisfy a specific business need.
 88
 89### Response and remediation
 90
 91- Initiate the incident response process based on the outcome of the triage.
 92- Isolate the involved host to prevent further post-compromise behavior.
 93- If the triage identified malware, search the environment for additional compromised hosts.
 94  - Implement temporary network rules, procedures, and segmentation to contain the malware.
 95  - Stop suspicious processes.
 96  - Immediately block the identified indicators of compromise (IoCs).
 97  - Inspect the affected systems for additional malware backdoors, such as reverse shells, reverse proxies, or droppers, that attackers could use to reinfect the system.
 98- Remove and block malicious artifacts identified during triage.
 99- Investigate credential exposure on systems compromised or used by the attacker to ensure all compromised accounts are identified. Reset passwords for these accounts and other potentially compromised credentials, such as email, business systems, and web services.
100- Run a full antimalware scan. This may reveal additional artifacts left in the system, persistence mechanisms, and malware components.
101- Determine the initial vector abused by the attacker and take action to prevent reinfection through the same vector.
102- Leverage the incident response data and logging to improve the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the mean time to respond (MTTR).
103"""
104risk_score = 47
105rule_id = "afd04601-12fc-4149-9b78-9c3f8fe45d39"
106setup = """## Setup
107
108This rule requires data coming in from Elastic Defend.
109
110### Elastic Defend Integration Setup
111Elastic Defend is integrated into the Elastic Agent using Fleet. Upon configuration, the integration allows the Elastic Agent to monitor events on your host and send data to the Elastic Security app.
112
113#### Prerequisite Requirements:
114- Fleet is required for Elastic Defend.
115- To configure Fleet Server refer to the [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/fleet-server.html).
116
117#### The following steps should be executed in order to add the Elastic Defend integration on a Linux System:
118- Go to the Kibana home page and click "Add integrations".
119- In the query bar, search for "Elastic Defend" and select the integration to see more details about it.
120- Click "Add Elastic Defend".
121- Configure the integration name and optionally add a description.
122- Select the type of environment you want to protect, either "Traditional Endpoints" or "Cloud Workloads".
123- Select a configuration preset. Each preset comes with different default settings for Elastic Agent, you can further customize these later by configuring the Elastic Defend integration policy. [Helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/configure-endpoint-integration-policy.html).
124- We suggest selecting "Complete EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)" as a configuration setting, that provides "All events; all preventions"
125- Enter a name for the agent policy in "New agent policy name". If other agent policies already exist, you can click the "Existing hosts" tab and select an existing policy instead.
126For more details on Elastic Agent configuration settings, refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/8.10/agent-policy.html).
127- Click "Save and Continue".
128- To complete the integration, select "Add Elastic Agent to your hosts" and continue to the next section to install the Elastic Agent on your hosts.
129For more details on Elastic Defend refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/install-endpoint.html).
130"""
131severity = "medium"
132tags = [
133    "Domain: Endpoint",
134    "OS: Linux",
135    "Use Case: Threat Detection",
136    "Tactic: Command and Control",
137    "Data Source: Elastic Defend",
138    "Resources: Investigation Guide",
139]
140type = "eql"
141
142query = '''
143sequence by host.id, process.entity_id with maxspan=1s
144  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and
145   process.name == "cat" and process.parent.name in ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish")]
146  [network where host.os.type == "linux" and event.action in ("connection_attempted", "disconnect_received") and
147   process.name == "cat" and not (destination.ip == null or destination.ip == "0.0.0.0" or cidrmatch(
148     destination.ip, "10.0.0.0/8", "127.0.0.0/8", "169.254.0.0/16", "172.16.0.0/12", "192.0.0.0/24", "192.0.0.0/29",
149     "192.0.0.8/32", "192.0.0.9/32", "192.0.0.10/32", "192.0.0.170/32", "192.0.0.171/32", "192.0.2.0/24",
150     "192.31.196.0/24", "192.52.193.0/24", "192.168.0.0/16", "192.88.99.0/24", "224.0.0.0/4", "100.64.0.0/10",
151     "192.175.48.0/24","198.18.0.0/15", "198.51.100.0/24", "203.0.113.0/24", "240.0.0.0/4", "::1", "FE80::/10",
152     "FF00::/8"
153     )
154   )]
155'''
156
157
158[[rule.threat]]
159framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
160
161[rule.threat.tactic]
162id = "TA0011"
163name = "Command and Control"
164reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0011/"
165[[rule.threat]]
166framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
167
168[rule.threat.tactic]
169id = "TA0005"
170name = "Defense Evasion"
171reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/"
172[[rule.threat]]
173framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
174
175[rule.threat.tactic]
176id = "TA0010"
177name = "Exfiltration"
178reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0010/"