ESXI Discovery via Grep

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-20

Created 2 years ago on 2023-04-11

About

Identifies instances where a process named 'grep', 'egrep', or 'pgrep' is started on a Linux system with arguments related to virtual machine (VM) files, such as "vmdk", "vmx", "vmxf", "vmsd", "vmsn", "vswp", "vmss", "nvram", or "vmem". These file extensions are associated with VM-related file formats, and their presence in grep command arguments may indicate that a threat actor is attempting to search for, analyze, or manipulate VM files on the system.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Auditd ManagerData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Discovery (TA0007)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Software Discovery (T1518)(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

auditbeat-*endgame-*logs-auditd_manager.auditd-*logs-endpoint.events.process*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*

Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

auditd_manager(opens in a new tab or window)

sentinel_one_cloud_funnel(opens in a new tab or window)

Query

process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and
  event.action in ("exec", "exec_event", "start", "executed", "process_started") and
  process.name in ("grep", "egrep", "pgrep") and
  process.args in ("vmdk", "vmx", "vmxf", "vmsd", "vmsn", "vswp", "vmss", "nvram", "vmem") and
  not process.parent.executable == "/usr/share/qemu/init/qemu-kvm-init"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect ESXI Discovery via Grep 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).