Elastic Security Detection Rules

File Creation, Execution and Self-Deletion in Suspicious Directory

Last updated 6 months ago on 2025-02-04
Created 2 years ago on 2023-08-28

About

This rule monitors for the creation of a file, followed by its execution and self-deletion in a short timespan within a directory often used for malicious purposes by threat actors. This behavior is often used by malware to execute malicious code and delete itself to hide its tracks.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059)(opens in a new tab or window)

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

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-endpoint.events.file*logs-endpoint.events.process*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
sequence by host.id, user.id with maxspan=1m
  [file where host.os.type == "linux" and event.action == "creation" and
   process.name in ("curl", "wget", "fetch", "ftp", "sftp", "scp", "rsync", "ld") and
   file.path : ("/dev/shm/*", "/run/shm/*", "/tmp/*", "/var/tmp/*",
     "/run/*", "/var/run/*", "/var/www/*", "/proc/*/fd/*")] by file.name
  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and
   process.parent.name in ("bash", "dash", "ash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish") and
   not process.parent.executable like (
     "/tmp/VeeamApp*", "/tmp/rajh/spack-stage/*", "plz-out/bin/vault/bridge/test/e2e/base/bridge-dev",
     "/usr/bin/ranlib", "/usr/bin/ar", "plz-out/bin/vault/bridge/test/e2e/base/local-k8s"
   )] by process.name
  [file where host.os.type == "linux" and event.action == "deletion" and
   file.path : (
     "/dev/shm/*", "/run/shm/*", "/tmp/*", "/var/tmp/*", "/run/*", "/var/run/*", "/var/www/*", "/proc/*/fd/*"
    ) and not process.name in ("rm", "ld", "conftest", "link", "gcc", "getarch", "ld")] by file.name

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect File Creation, Execution and Self-Deletion in Suspicious Directory 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(opens in a new tab or window).