This rule detects the creation of files named release_agent or notify_on_release, which are commonly associated with the abuse of Linux cgroup release mechanisms. In Docker or containerized environments, this behavior may indicate an attempt to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities such as CVE-2022-0492, where attackers use the release_agent feature to execute code on the host from within a container.

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Identifies the loading of a non Microsoft signed DLL that is missing on a default Windows install (phantom DLL) or one that can be loaded from a different location by a native Windows process. This may be abused to persist or elevate privileges via privileged file write vulnerabilities.

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Identifies an attempt to bypass User Account Control (UAC) by masquerading as a Microsoft trusted Windows directory. Attackers may bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Detects use of sensitive AWS STS or IAM API operations using temporary credentials (session tokens starting with 'ASIA'). This may indicate credential theft or abuse of elevated access via a stolen session. It is not common for legitimate users to perform sensitive IAM operations with temporary session tokens.

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Identifies execution of the Apple script interpreter (osascript) without a password prompt and with administrator privileges.

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Identifies execution of the security_authtrampoline process via a scripting interpreter. This occurs when programs use AuthorizationExecute-WithPrivileges from the Security.framework to run another program with root privileges. It should not be run by itself, as this is a sign of execution with explicit logon credentials.

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Identifies attempts to add an account to the admin group via the command line. This could be an indication of privilege escalation activity.

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Identifies use of the Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) to copy files locally by abusing the auto addition of the Secure Shell Daemon (sshd) to the authorized application list for Full Disk Access. This may indicate attempts to bypass macOS privacy controls to access sensitive files.

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Identifies modifications to the root crontab file. Adversaries may overwrite this file to gain code execution with root privileges by exploiting privileged file write or move related vulnerabilities.

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Detects attempts to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities related to the Adobe Acrobat Reader PrivilegedHelperTool responsible for installing updates. For more information, refer to CVE-2020-9615, CVE-2020-9614 and CVE-2020-9613 and verify that the impacted system is patched.

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This rule detects the use of the built-in Linux DebugFS utility from inside a container. DebugFS is a special file system debugging utility which supports reading and writing directly from a hard drive device. When launched inside a privileged container, a container deployed with all the capabilities of the host machine, an attacker can access sensitive host level files which could be used for further privilege escalation and container escapes to the host machine.

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This rule detects the use of the mount utility from inside a container. The mount command is used to make a device or file system accessible to the system, and then to connect its root directory to a specified mount point on the local file system. When launched inside a privileged container--a container deployed with all the capabilities of the host machine-- an attacker can access sensitive host level files which could be used for further privilege escalation and container escapes to the host machine. Any usage of mount inside a running privileged container should be further investigated.

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Elastic Endgame detected Credential Manipulation. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame prevented Credential Manipulation. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame detected an Exploit. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame prevented an Exploit. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame detected Permission Theft. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame prevented Permission Theft. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame detected Process Injection. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Elastic Endgame prevented Process Injection. Click the Elastic Endgame icon in the event.module column or the link in the rule.reference column for additional information.

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Identify access to sensitive Active Directory object attributes that contains credentials and decryption keys such as unixUserPassword, ms-PKI-AccountCredentials and msPKI-CredentialRoamingTokens.

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Identifies when the SYSTEM account uses an account discovery utility. This could be a sign of discovery activity after an adversary has achieved privilege escalation.

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Identifies User Account Control (UAC) bypass via eventvwr.exe. Attackers bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Detects when the Console Window Host (conhost.exe) process is spawned by a suspicious parent process, which could be indicative of code injection.

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Detects the creation or modification of a new Group Policy based scheduled task or service. These methods are used for legitimate system administration, but can also be abused by an attacker with domain admin permissions to execute a malicious payload remotely on all or a subset of the domain joined machines.

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User Account Control (UAC) can help mitigate the impact of malware on Windows hosts. With UAC, apps and tasks always run in the security context of a non-administrator account, unless an administrator specifically authorizes administrator-level access to the system. This rule identifies registry value changes to bypass User Access Control (UAC) protection.

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Identifies a new credentials logon type performed by an unusual process. This may indicate the existence of an access token forging capability that are often abused to bypass access control restrictions.

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This rule identifies when a User Account starts the Active Directory Replication Process for the first time. Attackers can use the DCSync technique to get credential information of individual accounts or the entire domain, thus compromising the entire domain.

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Detects the first occurrence of a modification to Group Policy Object Attributes to add privileges to user accounts or use them to add users as local admins.

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Identifies interactive logon attempt with alternate credentials and by an unusual process. Adversaries may create a new token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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Identifies the modification of an account's Kerberos pre-authentication options. An adversary with GenericWrite/GenericAll rights over the account can maliciously modify these settings to perform offline password cracking attacks such as AS-REP roasting.

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Identify the modification of the msPKIAccountCredentials attribute in an Active Directory User Object. Attackers can abuse the credentials roaming feature to overwrite an arbitrary file for privilege escalation. ms-PKI-AccountCredentials contains binary large objects (BLOBs) of encrypted credential objects from the credential manager store, private keys, certificates, and certificate requests.

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Identifies the creation or modification of a PowerShell profile. PowerShell profile is a script that is executed when PowerShell starts to customize the user environment, which can be abused by attackers to persist in a environment where PowerShell is common.

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Detects the successful hijack of Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser scheduled task to establish persistence with an integrity level of system.

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Identifies potential hijacking of the Microsoft Update Orchestrator Service to establish persistence with an integrity level of SYSTEM.

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This rule identifies when a User Account starts the Active Directory Replication Process. Attackers can use the DCSync technique to get credential information of individual accounts or the entire domain, thus compromising the entire domain.

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Identifies when a browser process navigates to the Microsoft Help page followed by spawning an elevated process. This may indicate a successful exploitation for privilege escalation abusing a vulnerable Windows Installer repair setup.

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Adversaries may leverage unquoted service path vulnerabilities to escalate privileges. By placing an executable in a higher-level directory within the path of an unquoted service executable, Windows will natively launch this executable from its defined path variable instead of the benign one in a deeper directory, thus leading to code execution.

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Identifies modification of the Time Provider. Adversaries may establish persistence by registering and enabling a malicious DLL as a time provider. Windows uses the time provider architecture to obtain accurate time stamps from other network devices or clients in the network. Time providers are implemented in the form of a DLL file which resides in the System32 folder. The service W32Time initiates during the startup of Windows and loads w32time.dll.

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Identifies a privilege escalation attempt via exploiting CVE-2022-38028 to hijack the print spooler service execution.

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Identifies registry modifications to default services that could enable privilege escalation to SYSTEM. Attackers with privileges from groups like Server Operators may change the ImagePath of services to executables under their control or to execute commands.

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Identifies a suspicious computer account name rename event, which may indicate an attempt to exploit CVE-2021-42278 to elevate privileges from a standard domain user to a user with domain admin privileges. CVE-2021-42278 is a security vulnerability that allows potential attackers to impersonate a domain controller via samAccountName attribute spoofing.

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Detects scripts that contain PowerShell functions, structures, or Windows API functions related to token impersonation/theft. Attackers may duplicate then impersonate another user's token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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Identifies a privilege escalation attempt via named pipe impersonation. An adversary may abuse this technique by utilizing a framework such Metasploit's meterpreter getsystem command.

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Identifies a privilege escalation attempt via rogue named pipe impersonation. An adversary may abuse this technique by masquerading as a known named pipe and manipulating a privileged process to connect to it.

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Identifies a privilege escalation attempt via a rogue Windows directory (Windir) environment variable. This is a known primitive that is often combined with other vulnerabilities to elevate privileges.

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Identifies process creation with alternate credentials. Adversaries may create a new process with a different token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, created a thread in another process. This technique is sometimes used to evade detection or elevate privileges.

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Detects attempts to maintain persistence by creating registry keys using AppCert DLLs. AppCert DLLs are loaded by every process using the common API functions to create processes.

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Identifies the remote update to a computer account's DnsHostName attribute. If the new value set is a valid domain controller DNS hostname and the subject computer name is not a domain controller, then it's highly likely a preparation step to exploit CVE-2022-26923 in an attempt to elevate privileges from a standard domain user to domain admin privileges.

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Detects the modification of Group Policy Object attributes to execute a scheduled task in the objects controlled by the GPO.

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Identifies the creation of a process running as SYSTEM and impersonating a Windows core binary privileges. Adversaries may create a new process with a different token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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Identifies Service Control (sc.exe) spawning from script interpreter processes to create, modify, or start services. This can potentially indicate an attempt to elevate privileges or maintain persistence.

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Identifies a suspicious local successful logon event where the Logon Package is Kerberos, the remote address is set to localhost, followed by a sevice creation from the same LogonId. This may indicate an attempt to leverage a Kerberos relay attack variant that can be used to elevate privilege locally from a domain joined user to local System privileges.

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Detects the modification of Group Policy Objects (GPO) to add a startup/logon script to users or computer objects.

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Detects deletion of print driver files by an unusual process. This may indicate a clean up attempt post successful privilege escalation via Print Spooler service related vulnerabilities.

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Detects attempts to exploit a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2020-1030) related to the print spooler service. Exploitation involves chaining multiple primitives to load an arbitrary DLL into the print spooler process running as SYSTEM.

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Detects attempts to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities related to the Print Spooler service. For more information refer to the following CVE's - CVE-2020-1048, CVE-2020-1337 and CVE-2020-1300 and verify that the impacted system is patched.

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A suspicious WerFault child process was detected, which may indicate an attempt to run via the SilentProcessExit registry key manipulation. Verify process details such as command line, network connections and file writes.

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Identifies User Account Control (UAC) bypass attempts by abusing an elevated COM Interface to launch a malicious program. Attackers may attempt to bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies attempts to bypass User Account Control (UAC) via DLL side-loading. Attackers may attempt to bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies attempts to bypass User Account Control (UAC) by abusing an elevated COM Interface to launch a rogue Windows ClipUp program. Attackers may attempt to bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies User Account Control (UAC) bypass via hijacking DiskCleanup Scheduled Task. Attackers bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies User Account Control (UAC) bypass attempts via the ICMLuaUtil Elevated COM interface. Attackers may attempt to bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies attempts to bypass User Account Control (UAC) by hijacking the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Windows Firewall snap-in. Attackers bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies unusual DLLs loaded by the DNS Server process, potentially indicating the abuse of the ServerLevelPluginDll functionality. This can lead to privilege escalation and remote code execution with SYSTEM privileges.

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Identifies Windows programs run from unexpected parent processes. This could indicate masquerading or other strange activity on a system.

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Detects unusual Print Spooler service (spoolsv.exe) child processes. This may indicate an attempt to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities related to the Printing Service on Windows.

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Identifies unusual child processes of Service Host (svchost.exe) that traditionally do not spawn any child processes. This may indicate a code injection or an equivalent form of exploitation.

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A machine learning job detected an unusual user context switch, using the runas command or similar techniques, which can indicate account takeover or privilege escalation using compromised accounts. Privilege elevation using tools like runas are more commonly used by domain and network administrators than by regular Windows users.

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Identifies the creation of a Windows service by an unusual client process. Services may be created with administrator privileges but are executed under SYSTEM privileges, so an adversary may also use a service to escalate privileges from administrator to SYSTEM.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by attaching additional permissions to user groups the compromised user account belongs to. This rule looks for use of the IAM AttachGroupPolicy API operation to attach the highly permissive AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy to an existing IAM user group.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by attaching additional permissions to compromised IAM roles. This rule looks for use of the IAM AttachRolePolicy API operation to attach the highly permissive AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy to an existing IAM role.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by attaching additional permissions to compromised user accounts. This rule looks for use of the IAM AttachUserPolicy API operation to attach the highly permissive AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy to an existing IAM user.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by creating a new set of credentials for an existing user. This rule looks for use of the IAM CreateAccessKey API operation to create new programmatic access keys for another IAM user.

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This rule detects the creation of D-Bus service files on Linux systems. D-Bus is a message bus system that provides a way for applications to talk to one another. D-Bus services are defined in service files that are typically located in default directories. The rule looks for the creation of service files that are not associated with known package managers or system services. Attackers may create malicious D-Bus services to establish persistence or escalate privileges on a system.

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This detection rule identifies the usage of kexec, helping to uncover unauthorized kernel replacements and potential compromise of the system's integrity. Kexec is a Linux feature that enables the loading and execution of a different kernel without going through the typical boot process. Malicious actors can abuse kexec to bypass security measures, escalate privileges, establish persistence or hide their activities by loading a malicious kernel, enabling them to tamper with the system's trusted state, allowing e.g. a VM Escape.

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Identifies suspicious usage of unshare to manipulate system namespaces. Unshare can be utilized to escalate privileges or escape container security boundaries. Threat actors have utilized this binary to allow themselves to escape to the host and access other resources or escalate privileges.

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Monitors for the execution of a file system mount followed by a chroot execution. Given enough permissions, a user within a container is capable of mounting the root file system of the host, and leveraging chroot to escape its containarized environment. This behavior pattern is very uncommon and should be investigated.

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Identifies an attempt to exploit a local privilege escalation in polkit pkexec (CVE-2021-4034) via unsecure environment variable injection. Successful exploitation allows an unprivileged user to escalate to the root user.

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This rule monitors for the execution of a set of linux binaries, that are potentially vulnerable to wildcard injection, with suspicious command line flags followed by a shell spawn event. Linux wildcard injection is a type of security vulnerability where attackers manipulate commands or input containing wildcards (e.g., *, ?, []) to execute unintended operations or access sensitive data by tricking the system into interpreting the wildcard characters in unexpected ways.

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This rule monitors for the execution of a suspicious sudo command that is leveraged in CVE-2019-14287 to escalate privileges to root. Sudo does not verify the presence of the designated user ID and proceeds to execute using a user ID that can be chosen arbitrarily. By using the sudo privileges, the command "sudo -u#-1" translates to an ID of 0, representing the root user. This exploit may work for sudo versions prior to v1.28.

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This rule monitors for the potential edit of a suspicious file. In Linux, when editing a file through an editor, a temporary .swp file is created. By monitoring for the creation of this .swp file, we can detect potential file edits of suspicious files. The execution of this rule is not a clear sign of the file being edited, as just opening the file through an editor will trigger this event. Attackers may alter any of the files added in this rule to establish persistence, escalate privileges or perform reconnaisance on the system.

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This rule monitors for the execution of the "chown" and "chmod" commands with command line flags that could indicate a wildcard injection attack. Linux wildcard injection is a type of security vulnerability where attackers manipulate commands or input containing wildcards (e.g., *, ?, []) to execute unintended operations or access sensitive data by tricking the system into interpreting the wildcard characters in unexpected ways.

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This rule detects the use of the setcap utility to set capabilities on a process. The setcap utility is used to set the capabilities of a binary to allow it to perform privileged operations without needing to run as root. This can be used by attackers to establish persistence by creating a backdoor, or escalate privileges by abusing a misconfiguration on a system.

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This rule detects when an unusual child process is spawned from the dbus-daemon parent process. The dbus-daemon process is a message bus system that provides a way for applications to talk to each other. Attackers may abuse this process to execute malicious code or escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has identified an unusually high median command line entropy for privileged commands executed by a user, suggesting possible privileged access activity through command lines. High entropy often indicates that the commands may be obfuscated or deliberately complex, which can be a sign of suspicious or unauthorized use of privileged access.

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A machine learning job has identified an unusual spike in Okta group application assignment change events, indicating potential privileged access activity. Threat actors might be assigning applications to groups to escalate access, maintain persistence, or facilitate lateral movement within an organization’s environment.

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A machine learning job has identified an unusual spike in Okta group lifecycle change events, indicating potential privileged access activity. Adversaries may be altering group structures to escalate privileges, maintain persistence, or facilitate lateral movement within an organization’s identity management system.

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A machine learning job has identified a spike in group management events for a user, indicating potential privileged access activity. The machine learning has flagged an abnormal rise in group management actions (such as adding or removing users from privileged groups), which could point to an attempt to escalate privileges or unauthorized modifications to group memberships.

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A machine learning job has identified an unusual spike in Okta group membership events, indicating potential privileged access activity. Attackers or malicious insiders might be adding accounts to privileged groups to escalate their access, potentially leading to unauthorized actions or data breaches.

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A machine learning job has identified an unusual spike in Okta group privilege change events, indicating potential privileged access activity. Attackers might be elevating privileges by adding themselves or compromised accounts to high-privilege groups, enabling further access or persistence.

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A machine learning job has detected an increase in the execution of privileged commands by a user, suggesting potential privileged access activity. This may indicate an attempt by the user to gain unauthorized access to sensitive or restricted parts of the system.

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A machine learning job has detected a surge in special logon events for a user, indicating potential privileged access activity. A sudden spike in these events could suggest an attacker or malicious insider gaining elevated access, possibly for lateral movement or privilege escalation.

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A machine learning job has detected an unusual increase in special privilege usage events, such as privileged operations and service calls, for a user, suggesting potential unauthorized privileged access. A sudden spike in these events may indicate an attempt to escalate privileges, execute unauthorized tasks, or maintain persistence within a system.

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A machine learning job has identified a spike in user account management events for a user, indicating potential privileged access activity. This indicates an unusual increase in actions related to managing user accounts (such as creating, modifying, or deleting accounts), which could be a sign of an attempt to escalate privileges or unauthorized activity involving account management.

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A machine learning job has identified an unusual spike in Okta user lifecycle management change events, indicating potential privileged access activity. Threat actors may manipulate user accounts to gain higher access rights or persist within the environment.

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A machine learning job has detected a user accessing an uncommon group name for privileged operations, indicating potential privileged access activity. This indicates that a user has accessed a group name that is unusual for their typical operations, particularly for actions requiring elevated privileges. This could point to an attempt to manipulate group memberships or escalate privileges on a system.

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A machine learning job has identified a user performing privileged operations in Okta from an uncommon device, indicating potential privileged access activity. This could signal a compromised account, an attacker using stolen credentials, or an insider threat leveraging an unauthorized device to escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has identified a user performing privileged operations in Windows from an uncommon device, indicating potential privileged access activity. This could signal a compromised account, an attacker using stolen credentials, or an insider threat leveraging an unauthorized device to escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has identified a user leveraging an uncommon privilege type for privileged operations, indicating potential privileged access activity. This indicates that a user is performing operations requiring elevated privileges but is using a privilege type that is not typically seen in their baseline logs.

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A machine learning job has detected an unusual process run for privileged commands by a user, indicating potential privileged access activity.

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A machine learning job has identified a user performing privileged operations in Okta from an uncommon geographical location, indicating potential privileged access activity. This could suggest a compromised account, unauthorized access, or an attacker using stolen credentials to escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has identified a user performing privileged operations in Windows from an uncommon geographical location, indicating potential privileged access activity. This could suggest a compromised account, unauthorized access, or an attacker using stolen credentials to escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has identified a user performing privileged operations in Okta from an uncommon source IP, indicating potential privileged access activity. This could suggest an account compromise, misuse of administrative privileges, or an attacker leveraging a new network location to escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has identified a user performing privileged operations in Windows from an uncommon source IP, indicating potential privileged access activity. This could suggest an account compromise, misuse of administrative privileges, or an attacker leveraging a new network location to escalate privileges.

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A machine learning job has detected an unusually high number of active concurrent sessions initiated by a user, indicating potential privileged access activity. A sudden surge in concurrent active sessions by a user may indicate an attempt to abuse valid credentials for privilege escalation or maintain persistence. Adversaries might be leveraging multiple sessions to execute privileged operations, evade detection, or perform unauthorized actions across different systems.

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This rule detects the use of the built-in Linux DebugFS utility from inside a privileged container. DebugFS is a special file system debugging utility which supports reading and writing directly from a hard drive device. When launched inside a privileged container, a container deployed with all the capabilities of the host machine, an attacker can access sensitive host level files which could be used for further privilege escalation and container escapes to the host machine.

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This rule detects the use of the mount utility from inside a privileged container. The mount command is used to make a device or file system accessible to the system, and then to connect its root directory to a specified mount point on the local file system. When launched inside a privileged container--a container deployed with all the capabilities of the host machine-- an attacker can access sensitive host level files which could be used for further privilege escalation and container escapes to the host machine. Any usage of mount inside a running privileged container should be further investigated.

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This rule detects modification of the cgroup notify_on_release file from inside a container. When the notify_on_release flag is enabled (1) in a cgroup, then whenever the last task in the cgroup exits or attaches to another cgroup, the command specified in the release_agent file is run and invoked from the host. A privileged container with SYS_ADMIN capabilities, enables a threat actor to mount a cgroup directory and modify the notify_on_release flag in order to take advantage of this feature, which could be used for further privilege escalation and container escapes to the host machine.

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This rule detects modification of the CGroup release_agent file from inside a privileged container. The release_agent is a script that is executed at the termination of any process on that CGroup and is invoked from the host. A privileged container with SYS_ADMIN capabilities, enables a threat actor to mount a CGroup directory and modify the release_agent which could be used for further privilege escalation and container escapes to the host machine.

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Detects network connections initiated by the "sudo" binary. This behavior is uncommon and may occur in instances where reverse shell shellcode is injected into a process run with elevated permissions via "sudo". Attackers may attempt to inject shellcode into processes running as root, to escalate privileges.

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This rule monitors for the usage of Docker runtime sockets to escalate privileges on Linux systems. Docker sockets by default are only be writable by the root user and docker group. Attackers that have permissions to write to these sockets may be able to create and run a container that allows them to escalate privileges and gain further access onto the host file system.

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This rule monitors for the execution of processes that interact with Linux containers through an interactive shell without root permissions. Utilities such as runc and ctr are universal command-line utilities leveraged to interact with containers via root permissions. On systems where the access to these utilities are misconfigured, attackers might be able to create and run a container that mounts the root folder or spawn a privileged container vulnerable to a container escape attack, which might allow them to escalate privileges and gain further access onto the host file system.

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This rule detects potential privilege escalation attempts through Looney Tunables (CVE-2023-4911). Looney Tunables is a buffer overflow vulnerability in GNU C Library's dynamic loader's processing of the GLIBC_TUNABLES environment variable.

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Identifies an attempt to exploit a local privilege escalation CVE-2022-37706 via a flaw in Linux window manager package Enlightenment. enlightenment_sys in Enlightenment before 0.25.4 allows local users to gain privileges because it is setuid root, and the system library function mishandles pathnames that begin with a /dev/.. substring.

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Identifies an attempt to exploit a local privilege escalation (CVE-2023-2640 and CVE-2023-32629) via a flaw in Ubuntu's modifications to OverlayFS. These flaws allow the creation of specialized executables, which, upon execution, grant the ability to escalate privileges to root on the affected machine.

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This detection rule monitors for the execution of a system command with setuid or setgid capabilities via Python, followed by a uid or gid change to the root user. This sequence of events may indicate successful privilege escalation. Setuid (Set User ID) and setgid (Set Group ID) are Unix-like OS features that enable processes to run with elevated privileges, based on the file owner or group. Threat actors can exploit these attributes to escalate privileges to the privileges that are set on the binary that is being executed.

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This rule monitors a sequence involving a program compilation event followed by its execution and a subsequent alteration of UID permissions to root privileges. This behavior can potentially indicate the execution of a kernel or software privilege escalation exploit.

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This rule monitors for the execution of the systemd-run command by a user with a UID that is larger than the maximum allowed UID size (INT_MAX). Some older Linux versions were affected by a bug which allows user accounts with a UID greater than INT_MAX to escalate privileges by spawning a shell through systemd-run.

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This rule detects potential sudo token manipulation attacks through process injection by monitoring the use of a debugger (gdb) process followed by a successful uid change event during the execution of the sudo process. A sudo token manipulation attack is performed by injecting into a process that has a valid sudo token, which can then be used by attackers to activate their own sudo token. This attack requires ptrace to be enabled in conjunction with the existence of a living process that has a valid sudo token with the same uid as the current user.

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This rule monitors for the usage of the built-in Linux DebugFS utility to access a disk device without root permissions. Linux users that are part of the "disk" group have sufficient privileges to access all data inside of the machine through DebugFS. Attackers may leverage DebugFS in conjunction with "disk" permissions to read sensitive files owned by root, such as the shadow file, root ssh private keys or other sensitive files that may allow them to further escalate privileges.

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Identifies instances where a processes (granted CAP_CHOWN and/or CAP_FOWNER capabilities) is executed, after which the ownership of a suspicious file or binary is changed. In Linux, the CAP_CHOWN capability allows a process to change the owner of a file, while CAP_FOWNER permits it to bypass permission checks on operations that require file ownership (like reading, writing, and executing). Attackers may abuse these capabilities to obtain unauthorized access to files.

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Identifies instances where a process (granted CAP_SETUID and/or CAP_SETGID capabilities) is executed, after which the user's access is elevated to UID/GID 0 (root). In Linux, the CAP_SETUID and CAP_SETGID capabilities allow a process to change its UID and GID, respectively, providing control over user and group identity management. Attackers may leverage a misconfiguration for exploitation in order to escalate their privileges to root.

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Identifies instances where GDB (granted the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability) is executed, after which the user's access is elevated to UID/GID 0 (root). In Linux, the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability grants a process the ability to use the ptrace system call, which is typically used for debugging and allows the process to trace and control other processes. Attackers may leverage this capability to hook and inject into a process that is running with root permissions in order to escalate their privileges to root.

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Identifies instances where a process is executed with user/group ID 0 (root), and a real user/group ID that is not 0. This is indicative of a process that has been granted SUID/SGID permissions, allowing it to run with elevated privileges. Attackers may leverage a misconfiguration for exploitation in order to escalate their privileges to root, or establish a backdoor for persistence.

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Identifies instances where GDB (granted the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability) is executed, after which an outbound network connection is initiated by UID/GID 0 (root). In Linux, the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability grants a process the ability to use the ptrace system call, which is typically used for debugging and allows the process to trace and control other processes. Attackers may leverage this capability to hook and inject into a process that is running with root permissions in order to execute shell code and gain a reverse shell with root privileges.

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This rule monitors for the usage of the "find" command in conjunction with SUID and SGUID permission arguments. SUID (Set User ID) and SGID (Set Group ID) are special permissions in Linux that allow a program to execute with the privileges of the file owner or group, respectively, rather than the privileges of the user running the program. In case an attacker is able to enumerate and find a binary that is misconfigured, they might be able to leverage this misconfiguration to escalate privileges by exploiting vulnerabilities or built-in features in the privileged program.

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Monitors for the elevation of regular user permissions to root permissions through the kworker process. kworker, or kernel worker, processes are part of the kernel's workqueue mechanism. They are responsible for executing work that has been scheduled to be done in kernel space, which might include tasks like handling interrupts, background activities, and other kernel-related tasks. Attackers may attempt to evade detection by masquerading as a kernel worker process, and hijack the execution flow by hooking certain functions/syscalls through a rootkit in order to provide easy access to root via a special modified command.

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Monitors for the generation of a passwd password entry via openssl, followed by a file write activity on the "/etc/passwd" file. The "/etc/passwd" file in Linux stores user account information, including usernames, user IDs, group IDs, home directories, and default shell paths. Attackers may exploit a misconfiguration in the "/etc/passwd" file permissions or other privileges to add a new entry to the "/etc/passwd" file with root permissions, and leverage this new user account to login as root.

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Identifies the creation of a symbolic link to a suspicious file or location. A symbolic link is a reference to a file or directory that acts as a pointer or shortcut, allowing users to access the target file or directory from a different location in the file system. An attacker can potentially leverage symbolic links for privilege escalation by tricking a privileged process into following the symbolic link to a sensitive file, giving the attacker access to data or capabilities they would not normally have.

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This rule monitors for (ana)cron jobs being created or renamed. Linux cron jobs are scheduled tasks that can be leveraged by system administrators to set up scheduled tasks, but may be abused by malicious actors for persistence, privilege escalation and command execution. By creating or modifying cron job configurations, attackers can execute malicious commands or scripts at predefined intervals, ensuring their continued presence and enabling unauthorized activities.

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Identifies the load of a driver with an original file name and signature values that were observed for the first time during the last 30 days. This rule type can help baseline drivers installation within your environment.

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Identifies a potential exploitation of InstallerTakeOver (CVE-2021-41379) default PoC execution. Successful exploitation allows an unprivileged user to escalate privileges to SYSTEM.

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Detects attempts to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities related to the Print Spooler service including CVE-2020-1048 and CVE-2020-1337.

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This rule detects the creation or renaming of a new Systemd file in all of the common Systemd service locations for both root and regular users. Systemd service files are configuration files in Linux systems used to define and manage system services. Malicious actors can leverage systemd service files to achieve persistence by creating or modifying services to execute malicious commands or payloads during system startup or at a predefined interval by adding a systemd timer. This allows them to maintain unauthorized access, execute additional malicious activities, or evade detection.

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Systemctl is a process used in Linux systems to manage systemd processes through service configuration files. Malicious actors can leverage systemd services to achieve persistence by creating or modifying service files to execute malicious commands or payloads during system startup. This allows them to maintain unauthorized access, execute additional malicious activities, or evade detection.

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Identifies users being added to the admin group. This could be an indication of privilege escalation activity.

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Identifies modification of the dynamic linker preload shared object (ld.so.preload). Adversaries may execute malicious payloads by hijacking the dynamic linker used to load libraries.

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Identifies potential privilege escalation exploitation of DAC (Discretionary access control) file permissions. The rule identifies exploitation of DAC checks on sensitive file paths via suspicious processes whose capabilities include CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE (where a process can bypass all read write and execution checks) or CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH (where a process can read any file or perform any executable permission on the directories).

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Monitors for the elevation of regular user permissions to root permissions through a previously unknown executable. Attackers may attempt to evade detection by hijacking the execution flow and hooking certain functions/syscalls through a rootkit in order to provide easy access to root via a special modified command.

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This rule monitors for Linux Shadow file modifications. These modifications are indicative of a potential password change or user addition event. Threat actors may attempt to create new users or change the password of a user account to maintain access to a system.

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This rule detects the creation of a systemd generator file. Generators are small executables executed by systemd at bootup and during configuration reloads. Their main role is to convert non-native configuration and execution parameters into dynamically generated unit files, symlinks, or drop-ins, extending the unit file hierarchy for the service manager. Systemd generators can be used to execute arbitrary code at boot time, which can be leveraged by attackers to maintain persistence on a Linux system.

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Identifies AWS CloudTrail events where an IAM role's trust policy has been updated. The trust policy is a JSON document that defines which principals are allowed to assume the role. An attacker may attempt to modify this policy to gain the privileges of the role. This is a New Terms rule, which means it will only trigger once for each unique value of the aws.cloudtrail.user_identity.arn and aws.cloudtrail.flattened.request_parameters.roleName fields that has not been seen making this API request within the last 14 days.

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Identifies when a service has assumed a role in AWS Security Token Service (STS). Services can assume a role to obtain temporary credentials and access AWS resources. Adversaries can use this technique for credential access and privilege escalation. This is a New Terms rule that identifies when a service assumes a role in AWS Security Token Service (STS) to obtain temporary credentials and access AWS resources. While often legitimate, adversaries may use this technique for unauthorized access, privilege escalation, or lateral movement within an AWS environment.

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This rule detects the execution of shell commands by systemd during the boot process on Linux systems. Systemd is a system and service manager for Linux operating systems. Attackers may execute shell commands during the boot process to maintain persistence on the system. This may be a sign of malicious systemd services, initramfs or GRUB bootloader manipulation, or other persistence mechanisms.

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This rule monitors for at jobs being created or renamed. Linux at jobs are scheduled tasks that can be leveraged by system administrators to set up scheduled tasks, but may be abused by malicious actors for persistence, privilege escalation and command execution. By creating or modifying cron job configurations, attackers can execute malicious commands or scripts at predefined intervals, ensuring their continued presence and enabling unauthorized activities.

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Identifies when a new SSH public key is uploaded to an AWS EC2 instance using the EC2 Instance Connect service. This action could indicate an adversary attempting to maintain access to the instance. The rule also detects the SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey or SendSSHPublicKey API actions, which are logged when manually uploading an SSH key to an EC2 instance or serial connection. It is important to know that this API call happens automatically by the EC2 Instance Connect service when a user connects to an EC2 instance using the EC2 Instance Connect service via the CLI or AWS Management Console.

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Detects when an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) customer-managed policy is attached to a role by an unusual or unauthorized user. Customer-managed policies are policies created and controlled within an AWS account, granting specific permissions to roles or users when attached. This rule identifies potential privilege escalation by flagging cases where a customer-managed policy is attached to a role by an unexpected actor, which could signal unauthorized access or misuse. Attackers may attach policies to roles to expand permissions and elevate their privileges within the AWS environment. This is a New Terms rule that uses the aws.cloudtrail.user_identity.arn and aws.cloudtrail.flattened.request_parameters.roleName fields to check if the combination of the actor ARN and target role name has not been seen in the last 14 days.

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Identifies when a user has updated a SAML provider in AWS. SAML providers are used to enable federated access to the AWS Management Console. This activity could be an indication of an attacker attempting to escalate privileges.

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Identifies the modification of the master password for an AWS RDS DB instance or cluster. DB instances may contain sensitive data that can be abused if accessed by unauthorized actors. Amazon RDS API operations never return the password, so this operation provides a means to regain access if the password is lost. Adversaries with the proper permissions can take advantage of this to evade defenses and gain unauthorized access to a DB instance or cluster to support persistence mechanisms or privilege escalation.

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Identifies when a user has assumed a role using a new MFA device. Users can assume a role to obtain temporary credentials and access AWS resources using the AssumeRole API of AWS Security Token Service (STS). While a new MFA device is not always indicative of malicious behavior it should be verified as adversaries can use this technique for persistence and privilege escalation.

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Identifies when the STS AssumeRoot action is performed by a rare user in AWS. The AssumeRoot action allows users to assume the root member account role, granting elevated but specific permissions based on the task policy specified. Adversaries whom may have compromised user credentials, such as access and secret keys, can use this technique to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized access to AWS resources. This is a New Terms rule that identifies when the STS AssumeRoot action is performed by a user that rarely assumes this role and specific member account.

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Identifies the suspicious use of GetSessionToken. Tokens could be created and used by attackers to move laterally and escalate privileges.

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Identifies when a user or role has assumed a role in AWS Security Token Service (STS). Users can assume a role to obtain temporary credentials and access AWS resources. Adversaries can use this technique for credential access and privilege escalation. This is a New Terms rule that identifies when a service assumes a role in AWS Security Token Service (STS) to obtain temporary credentials and access AWS resources. While often legitimate, adversaries may use this technique for unauthorized access, privilege escalation, or lateral movement within an AWS environment.

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Identifies role chaining activity. Role chaining is when you use one assumed role to assume a second role through the AWS CLI or API. While this a recognized functionality in AWS, role chaining can be abused for privilege escalation if the subsequent assumed role provides additional privileges. Role chaining can also be used as a persistence mechanism as each AssumeRole action results in a refreshed session token with a 1 hour maximum duration. This rule looks for role chaining activity happening within a single account, to eliminate false positives produced by common cross-account behavior.

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Identifies the creation of role binding or cluster role bindings. You can assign these roles to Kubernetes subjects (users, groups, or service accounts) with role bindings and cluster role bindings. An adversary who has permissions to create bindings and cluster-bindings in the cluster can create a binding to the cluster-admin ClusterRole or to other high privileges roles.

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Identifies the occurrence of a CyberArk Privileged Access Security (PAS) error level audit event. The event.code correlates to the CyberArk Vault Audit Action Code.

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Identifies the occurrence of a CyberArk Privileged Access Security (PAS) non-error level audit event which is recommended for monitoring by the vendor. The event.code correlates to the CyberArk Vault Audit Action Code.

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This rule identifies a UID change event via nsenter. The nsenter command is used to enter a namespace, which is a way to isolate processes and resources. Attackers can use nsenter to escape from a container to the host, which can lead to privilege escalation and lateral movement.

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Identifies an attempt to load a revoked or expired driver. Adversaries may bring outdated drivers with vulnerabilities to gain code execution in kernel mode or abuse revoked certificates to sign their drivers.

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This rule detects a container deployed with one or more dangerously permissive Linux capabilities. An attacker with the ability to deploy a container with added capabilities could use this for further execution, lateral movement, or privilege escalation within a cluster. The capabilities detected in this rule have been used in container escapes to the host machine.

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This rule detects when a pod is created with a sensitive volume of type hostPath. A hostPath volume type mounts a sensitive file or folder from the node to the container. If the container gets compromised, the attacker can use this mount for gaining access to the node. There are many ways a container with unrestricted access to the host filesystem can escalate privileges, including reading data from other containers, and accessing tokens of more privileged pods.

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This rule detects an attempt to create or modify a pod using the host IPC namespace. This gives access to data used by any pod that also use the hosts IPC namespace. If any process on the host or any processes in a pod uses the hosts inter-process communication mechanisms (shared memory, semaphore arrays, message queues, etc.), an attacker can read/write to those same mechanisms. They may look for files in /dev/shm or use ipcs to check for any IPC facilities being used.

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This rules detects an attempt to create or modify a pod attached to the host network. HostNetwork allows a pod to use the node network namespace. Doing so gives the pod access to any service running on localhost of the host. An attacker could use this access to snoop on network activity of other pods on the same node or bypass restrictive network policies applied to its given namespace.

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This rule detects an attempt to create or modify a pod attached to the host PID namespace. HostPID allows a pod to access all the processes running on the host and could allow an attacker to take malicious action. When paired with ptrace this can be used to escalate privileges outside of the container. When paired with a privileged container, the pod can see all of the processes on the host. An attacker can enter the init system (PID 1) on the host. From there, they could execute a shell and continue to escalate privileges to root.

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This rule detects when a user creates a pod/container running in privileged mode. A highly privileged container has access to the node's resources and breaks the isolation between containers. If compromised, an attacker can use the privileged container to gain access to the underlying host. Gaining access to the host may provide the adversary with the opportunity to achieve follow-on objectives, such as establishing persistence, moving laterally within the environment, or setting up a command and control channel on the host.

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This rule detects a request to attach a controller service account to an existing or new pod running in the kube-system namespace. By default, controllers running as part of the API Server utilize admin-equivalent service accounts hosted in the kube-system namespace. Controller service accounts aren't normally assigned to running pods and could indicate adversary behavior within the cluster. An attacker that can create or modify pods or pod controllers in the kube-system namespace, can assign one of these admin-equivalent service accounts to a pod and abuse their powerful token to escalate privileges and gain complete cluster control.

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Identifies a new or modified federation domain, which can be used to create a trust between O365 and an external identity provider.

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Identifies parent process spoofing used to thwart detection. Adversaries may spoof the parent process identifier (PPID) of a new process to evade process-monitoring defenses or to elevate privileges.

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Detects potential buffer overflow attacks by querying the "Segfault Detected" pre-built rule signal index, through a threshold rule, with a minimum number of 100 segfault alerts in a short timespan. A large amount of segfaults in a short time interval could indicate application exploitation attempts.

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Adversaries can use the autostart mechanism provided by the Local Security Authority (LSA) authentication packages for privilege escalation or persistence by placing a reference to a binary in the Windows registry. The binary will then be executed by SYSTEM when the authentication packages are loaded.

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This rule leverages the File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) integration to detect file modifications of files that are commonly used for persistence on Linux systems. The rule detects modifications to files that are commonly used for cron jobs, systemd services, message-of-the-day (MOTD), SSH configurations, shell configurations, runtime control, init daemon, passwd/sudoers/shadow files, Systemd udevd, and XDG/KDE autostart entries. To leverage this rule, the paths specified in the query need to be added to the FIM policy in the Elastic Security app.

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Identifies port monitor and print processor registry modifications. Adversaries may abuse port monitor and print processors to run malicious DLLs during system boot that will be executed as SYSTEM for privilege escalation and/or persistence, if permissions allow writing a fully-qualified pathname for that DLL.

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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 access to the /etc/shadow file via the commandline using standard system utilities. After elevating privileges to root, threat actors may attempt to read or dump this file in order to gain valid credentials. They may utilize these to move laterally undetected and access additional resources.

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Identifies the creation of a sudo binary located at /usr/bin/sudo. Attackers may hijack the default sudo binary and replace it with a custom binary or script that can read the user's password in clear text to escalate privileges or enable persistence onto the system every time the sudo binary is executed.

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Identifies parent process spoofing used to create an elevated child process. Adversaries may spoof the parent process identifier (PPID) of a new process to evade process-monitoring defenses or to elevate privileges.

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Identifies the creation of a process impersonating the token of another user logon session. Adversaries may create a new process with a different token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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Identifies the creation of a process running as SYSTEM and impersonating a Windows core binary privileges. Adversaries may create a new process with a different token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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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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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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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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Looks for sudo activity from an unusual user context. An unusual sudo user could be due to troubleshooting activity or it could be a sign of credentialed access via compromised accounts.

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Identifies probable exploitation of the Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) service. Attackers who have access to the local network or upstream DNS traffic can inject malicious JavaScript to the WPAD service which can lead to a full system compromise.

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Identifies Component Object Model (COM) hijacking via registry modification. Adversaries may establish persistence by executing malicious content triggered by hijacked references to COM objects.

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Identifies attempts to login to AWS as the root user without using multi-factor authentication (MFA). Amazon AWS best practices indicate that the root user should be protected by MFA.

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