Sensitive Files Compression

  1[metadata]
  2creation_date = "2020/12/22"
  3integration = ["endpoint", "auditd_manager", "sentinel_one_cloud_funnel"]
  4maturity = "production"
  5updated_date = "2026/09/18"
  6
  7[rule]
  8author = ["Elastic", "Massimo Bertocchi"]
  9description = """
 10Identifies the use of a compression utility to collect known files containing sensitive information, such as credentials
 11and system configurations.
 12"""
 13from = "now-9m"
 14index = [
 15    "auditbeat-*",
 16    "endgame-*",
 17    "logs-auditd_manager.auditd-*",
 18    "logs-endpoint.events.process*",
 19    "logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*",
 20]
 21language = "kuery"
 22license = "Elastic License v2"
 23name = "Sensitive Files Compression"
 24references = [
 25    "https://www.trendmicro.com/en_ca/research/20/l/teamtnt-now-deploying-ddos-capable-irc-bot-tntbotinger.html",
 26]
 27risk_score = 47
 28rule_id = "6b84d470-9036-4cc0-a27c-6d90bbfe81ab"
 29setup = """## Setup
 30
 31This rule requires data coming in from one of the following integrations:
 32- Elastic Defend
 33- Auditbeat
 34
 35
 36### Elastic Defend Integration Setup
 37Elastic Defend is integrated into the Elastic Agent using Fleet. Upon configuration, the integration allows
 38the Elastic Agent to monitor events on your host and send data to the Elastic Security app.
 39
 40#### Prerequisite Requirements:
 41- Fleet is required for Elastic Defend.
 42- To configure Fleet Server refer to the [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/fleet-server.html).
 43
 44#### The following steps should be executed in order to add the Elastic Defend integration on a Linux System:
 45- Go to the Kibana home page and click "Add integrations".
 46- In the query bar, search for "Elastic Defend" and select the integration to see more details about it.
 47- Click "Add Elastic Defend".
 48- Configure the integration name and optionally add a description.
 49- Select the type of environment you want to protect, either "Traditional Endpoints" or "Cloud Workloads".
 50- 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).
 51- We suggest to select "Complete EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)" as a configuration setting, that provides "All events; all preventions"
 52- 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.
 53For more details on Elastic Agent configuration settings, refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/8.10/agent-policy.html).
 54- Click "Save and Continue".
 55- 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.
 56For more details on Elastic Defend refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/install-endpoint.html).
 57
 58### Auditbeat Setup
 59Auditbeat is a lightweight shipper that you can install on your servers to audit the activities of users and processes on your systems. For example, you can use Auditbeat to collect and centralize audit events from the Linux Audit Framework. You can also use Auditbeat to detect changes to critical files, like binaries and configuration files, and identify potential security policy violations.
 60
 61#### The following steps should be executed in order to add the Auditbeat on a Linux System:
 62- Elastic provides repositories available for APT and YUM-based distributions. Note that we provide binary packages, but no source packages.
 63- To install the APT and YUM repositories follow the setup instructions in this [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/auditbeat/current/setup-repositories.html).
 64- To run Auditbeat on Docker follow the setup instructions in the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/auditbeat/current/running-on-docker.html).
 65- To run Auditbeat on Kubernetes follow the setup instructions in the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/auditbeat/current/running-on-kubernetes.html).
 66- For complete “Setup and Run Auditbeat” information refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/auditbeat/current/setting-up-and-running.html).
 67"""
 68severity = "medium"
 69tags = [
 70    "Domain: Endpoint",
 71    "OS: Linux",
 72    "Use Case: Threat Detection",
 73    "Tactic: Collection",
 74    "Tactic: Credential Access",
 75    "Data Source: Elastic Endgame",
 76    "Data Source: Elastic Defend",
 77    "Data Source: SentinelOne",
 78    "Data Source: Auditd Manager",
 79    "Resources: Investigation Guide",
 80    "Noise: Medium",
 81    "Performance: Normal",
 82    "Rule Type: New Terms",
 83    "Platform: Linux",
 84]
 85timestamp_override = "event.ingested"
 86type = "new_terms"
 87query = '''
 88event.category:process and host.os.type:linux and event.type:start and
 89event.action:("exec" or "exec_event" or "start" or "executed" or "process_started") and
 90process.name:(zip or tar or gzip or hdiutil or 7z) and
 91process.args:
 92    (
 93      /root/.ssh/id_rsa or
 94      /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub or
 95      /root/.ssh/id_ed25519 or
 96      /root/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub or
 97      /root/.ssh/authorized_keys or
 98      /root/.ssh/authorized_keys2 or
 99      /root/.ssh/known_hosts or
100      /root/.bash_history or
101      /etc/hosts or
102      /home/*/.ssh/id_rsa or
103      /home/*/.ssh/id_rsa.pub or
104      /home/*/.ssh/id_ed25519 or
105      /home/*/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub or
106      /home/*/.ssh/authorized_keys or
107      /home/*/.ssh/authorized_keys2 or
108      /home/*/.ssh/known_hosts or
109      /home/*/.bash_history or
110      /root/.aws/credentials or
111      /root/.aws/config or
112      /home/*/.aws/credentials or
113      /home/*/.aws/config or
114      /home/*/.config/gcloud/credentials.db or
115      /home/*/.config/gcloud/access_tokens.db or
116      /home/*/.azure/credentials or
117      /root/.azure/credentials or
118      /root/.docker/config.json or
119      /home/*/.docker/config.json or
120      /root/.kube/config or
121      /home/*/.kube/config or
122      /etc/group or
123      /etc/passwd or
124      /etc/shadow or
125      /etc/gshadow
126    )
127'''
128note = """## Triage and analysis
129
130> **Disclaimer**:
131> This investigation guide was created using generative AI technology and has been reviewed to improve its accuracy and relevance. While every effort has been made to ensure its quality, we recommend validating the content and adapting it to suit your specific environment and operational needs.
132
133### Investigating Sensitive Files Compression
134
135Compression utilities like zip, tar, and gzip are essential for efficiently managing and transferring files. However, adversaries can exploit these tools to compress and exfiltrate sensitive data, such as SSH keys and configuration files. The detection rule identifies suspicious compression activities by monitoring process executions involving these utilities and targeting known sensitive file paths, thereby flagging potential data collection and credential access attempts.
136
137### Possible investigation steps
138
139- Review the process execution details to identify the user account associated with the compression activity, focusing on the process.name and process.args fields.
140- Examine the command line arguments (process.args) to determine which specific sensitive files were targeted for compression.
141- Check the event.timestamp to establish a timeline and correlate with other potentially suspicious activities on the host.
142- Investigate the host's recent login history and user activity to identify any unauthorized access attempts or anomalies.
143- Analyze network logs for any outbound connections from the host around the time of the event to detect potential data exfiltration attempts.
144- Assess the integrity and permissions of the sensitive files involved to determine if they have been altered or accessed inappropriately.
145
146### False positive analysis
147
148- Routine system backups or administrative tasks may trigger the rule if they involve compressing sensitive files for legitimate purposes. Users can create exceptions for known backup scripts or administrative processes by excluding specific process names or command-line arguments associated with these tasks.
149- Developers or system administrators might compress configuration files during development or deployment processes. To handle this, users can whitelist specific user accounts or directories commonly used for development activities, ensuring these actions are not flagged as suspicious.
150- Automated scripts or cron jobs that regularly archive logs or configuration files could be mistakenly identified as threats. Users should review and exclude these scheduled tasks by identifying their unique process identifiers or execution patterns.
151- Security tools or monitoring solutions that periodically compress and transfer logs for analysis might be misinterpreted as malicious. Users can exclude these tools by specifying their process names or paths in the detection rule exceptions.
152
153### Response and remediation
154
155- Immediately isolate the affected system from the network to prevent further data exfiltration and unauthorized access.
156- Terminate any suspicious processes identified by the detection rule to halt ongoing compression and potential data exfiltration activities.
157- Conduct a thorough review of the compressed files and their contents to assess the extent of sensitive data exposure and determine if any data has been exfiltrated.
158- Change all credentials associated with the compromised files, such as SSH keys and AWS credentials, to prevent unauthorized access using stolen credentials.
159- Restore any altered or deleted configuration files from a known good backup to ensure system integrity and functionality.
160- Escalate the incident to the security operations center (SOC) or incident response team for further investigation and to determine if additional systems are affected.
161- Implement enhanced monitoring and logging for compression utilities and sensitive file access to detect and respond to similar threats more effectively in the future."""
162
163[[rule.threat]]
164framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
165
166[[rule.threat.technique]]
167id = "T1552"
168name = "Unsecured Credentials"
169reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/"
170
171[[rule.threat.technique.subtechnique]]
172id = "T1552.001"
173name = "Credentials In Files"
174reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/001/"
175
176[rule.threat.tactic]
177id = "TA0006"
178name = "Credential Access"
179reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0006/"
180
181[[rule.threat]]
182framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
183
184[[rule.threat.technique]]
185id = "T1005"
186name = "Data from Local System"
187reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1005/"
188
189[[rule.threat.technique]]
190id = "T1560"
191name = "Archive Collected Data"
192reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1560/"
193
194[[rule.threat.technique.subtechnique]]
195id = "T1560.001"
196name = "Archive via Utility"
197reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1560/001/"
198
199[rule.threat.tactic]
200id = "TA0009"
201name = "Collection"
202reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0009/"
203[rule.new_terms]
204field = "new_terms_fields"
205value = ["host.id", "process.command_line", "process.parent.executable"]
206
207[[rule.new_terms.history_window_start]]
208field = "history_window_start"
209value = "now-5d"