Unknown Execution of Binary with RWX Memory Region

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-12-19

Created 2 years ago on 2024-03-13

About

Monitors for the execution of a previously unknown unix binary with read, write and execute memory region permissions. The mprotect() system call is used to change the access protections on a region of memory that has already been allocated. This syscall allows a process to modify the permissions of pages in its virtual address space, enabling or disabling permissions such as read, write, and execute for those pages. RWX permissions on memory is in many cases overly permissive, and should be analyzed thoroughly.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionData Source: Auditd ManagerLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

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

License

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

Definition

Rule Type: New Terms 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:
✄𐘗event.category:process and host.os.type:linux and auditd.data.syscall:mprotect and auditd.data.a2:7 and not (
  process.executable:(
    "/usr/share/kibana/node/bin/node" or "/usr/share/elasticsearch/jdk/bin/java" or "/usr/sbin/apache2"
  ) or
  process.name:(httpd or java or node or dotnet or github-desktop or code or tenzir or brave or qemu-* or php* or deno)
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Unknown Execution of Binary with RWX Memory Region 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).