Potential Reverse Shell via Suspicious Binary
This detection rule detects the creation of a shell through a chain consisting of the execution of a suspicious binary (located in a commonly abused location or executed manually) followed by a network event and ending with a shell being spawned. Stageless reverse tcp shells display this behaviour. Attackers may spawn reverse shells to establish persistence onto a target system.
Elastic rule (View on GitHub)
1[metadata]
2creation_date = "2023/07/05"
3integration = ["endpoint"]
4maturity = "production"
5min_stack_comments = "New fields added: required_fields, related_integrations, setup"
6min_stack_version = "8.3.0"
7updated_date = "2024/03/08"
8
9[rule]
10author = ["Elastic"]
11description = """
12This detection rule detects the creation of a shell through a chain consisting of the execution of a suspicious binary
13(located in a commonly abused location or executed manually) followed by a network event and ending with a shell being
14spawned. Stageless reverse tcp shells display this behaviour. Attackers may spawn reverse shells to establish
15persistence onto a target system.
16"""
17from = "now-9m"
18index = ["logs-endpoint.events.*"]
19language = "eql"
20license = "Elastic License v2"
21name = "Potential Reverse Shell via Suspicious Binary"
22references = [
23 "https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/blob/master/Methodology%20and%20Resources/Reverse%20Shell%20Cheatsheet.md"
24]
25risk_score = 47
26rule_id = "fa3a59dc-33c3-43bf-80a9-e8437a922c7f"
27setup = """## Setup
28
29This rule requires data coming in from Elastic Defend.
30
31### Elastic Defend Integration Setup
32Elastic 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.
33
34#### Prerequisite Requirements:
35- Fleet is required for Elastic Defend.
36- To configure Fleet Server refer to the [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/fleet-server.html).
37
38#### The following steps should be executed in order to add the Elastic Defend integration on a Linux System:
39- Go to the Kibana home page and click "Add integrations".
40- In the query bar, search for "Elastic Defend" and select the integration to see more details about it.
41- Click "Add Elastic Defend".
42- Configure the integration name and optionally add a description.
43- Select the type of environment you want to protect, either "Traditional Endpoints" or "Cloud Workloads".
44- 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).
45- We suggest selecting "Complete EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)" as a configuration setting, that provides "All events; all preventions"
46- 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.
47For more details on Elastic Agent configuration settings, refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/8.10/agent-policy.html).
48- Click "Save and Continue".
49- 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.
50For more details on Elastic Defend refer to the [helper guide](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/install-endpoint.html).
51"""
52severity = "medium"
53tags = [
54 "Domain: Endpoint",
55 "OS: Linux",
56 "Use Case: Threat Detection",
57 "Tactic: Execution",
58 "Data Source: Elastic Defend"
59 ]
60type = "eql"
61query = '''
62sequence by host.id, process.entity_id with maxspan=1s
63[ process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and
64 process.executable : (
65 "./*", "/tmp/*", "/var/tmp/*", "/var/www/*", "/dev/shm/*", "/etc/init.d/*", "/etc/rc*.d/*",
66 "/etc/crontab", "/etc/cron.*", "/etc/update-motd.d/*", "/usr/lib/update-notifier/*",
67 "/boot/*", "/srv/*", "/run/*", "/root/*", "/etc/rc.local"
68 ) and
69 process.parent.name : ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish") and not
70 process.name : ("curl", "wget", "ping", "apt", "dpkg", "yum", "rpm", "dnf", "dockerd") ]
71[ network where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action in ("connection_attempted", "connection_accepted") and
72 process.executable : (
73 "./*", "/tmp/*", "/var/tmp/*", "/var/www/*", "/dev/shm/*", "/etc/init.d/*", "/etc/rc*.d/*",
74 "/etc/crontab", "/etc/cron.*", "/etc/update-motd.d/*", "/usr/lib/update-notifier/*",
75 "/boot/*", "/srv/*", "/run/*", "/root/*", "/etc/rc.local"
76 ) and destination.ip != null and destination.ip != "127.0.0.1" and destination.ip != "::1" ]
77[ process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and
78 process.name : ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish") and
79 process.parent.name : ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish") ]
80'''
81
82[[rule.threat]]
83framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
84
85[rule.threat.tactic]
86name = "Execution"
87id = "TA0002"
88reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0002/"
89
90[[rule.threat.technique]]
91id = "T1059"
92name = "Command and Scripting Interpreter"
93reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/"
94
95[[rule.threat.technique.subtechnique]]
96id = "T1059.004"
97name = "Unix Shell"
98reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/004/"
99
100[[rule.threat]]
101framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
102
103[rule.threat.tactic]
104name = "Command and Control"
105id = "TA0011"
106reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0011/"
107
108[[rule.threat.technique]]
109name = "Application Layer Protocol"
110id = "T1071"
111reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1071/"```
References
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