Potential Privilege Escalation via unshare Followed by Root Process

Last updated 4 days ago on 2026-05-08

Created 4 days ago on 2026-05-08

About

Detects a short sequence where a non-root user performs unshare-related namespace activity (often associated with user namespace privilege escalation primitives) and then a root process is executed shortly after. This can indicate a successful local privilege escalation attempt or suspicious namespace manipulation captured in Auditd Manager telemetry.

Tags

Data Source: Auditd ManagerDomain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationLanguage: eql

Severity

high

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Legitimate sandboxing, container tooling, or maintenance scripts may use unshare and spawn privileged helpers under controlled workflows. Baseline approved tools and tune by host role, parent process, or user accounts.

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-*logs-auditd_manager.auditd-*
Related Integrations: auditd_manager(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗sequence by host.id, process.parent.pid with maxspan=30s
 [process where host.os.type == "linux" and 
  (
   (auditd.data.syscall == "unshare" and auditd.data.class == "namespace" and auditd.data.a0 in ("10000000", "50000000", "70000000", "10020000", "50020000", "70020000")) or 

   (process.name == "unshare" and  
    (process.args in ("--user", "--map-root-user", "--map-current-user") or process.args like ("-*U*", "-*r*")))
   ) and user.id != "0" and user.id != null]
 [process where host.os.type == "linux" and 
  user.id == "0" and user.id != null and 
  (
   process.name in ("su", "sudo", "pkexec", "passwd", "chsh", "newgrp", "doas", "run0", "sg", "dash", "sh", "bash", "zsh", "fish", 
                    "ksh", "csh", "tcsh", "ash", "mksh", "busybox", "rbash", "rzsh", "rksh", "tmux", "screen", "node") or 
   process.name like ("python*", "perl*", "ruby*", "php*", "lua*")
  )]

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Privilege Escalation via unshare Followed by Root Process 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).