Interactive Terminal Spawned via Perl

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-12-19
Created 6 years ago on 2020-04-16

About

Identifies when a terminal (tty) is spawned via Perl. Attackers may upgrade a simple reverse shell to a fully interactive tty after obtaining initial access to a host.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Auditd ManagerData Source: CrowdstrikeData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Execution (TA0002)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

License
Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
auditbeat-*endgame-*logs-auditd_manager.auditd-*logs-crowdstrike.fdr*logs-endpoint.events.process*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*
Related Integrations

endpoint(external, opens in a new tab or window)

auditd_manager(external, opens in a new tab or window)

crowdstrike(external, opens in a new tab or window)

sentinel_one_cloud_funnel(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action in ("exec", "exec_event", "start", "ProcessRollup2", "executed", "process_started") and process.name == "perl" and process.args == "exec" and process.args in ( "\"sh\";", "\"dash\";", "\"bash\";", "\"zsh\";", "\"/bin/sh\";", "\"/bin/dash\";", "\"/bin/bash\";", "\"/bin/zsh\";", "\"/usr/bin/sh\";", "\"/usr/bin/dash\";", "\"/usr/bin/bash\";", "\"/usr/bin/zsh\";", "\"/usr/local/bin/sh\";", "\"/usr/local/bin/dash\";", "\"/usr/local/bin/bash\";", "\"/usr/local/bin/zsh\";" )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Interactive Terminal Spawned via Perl in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).