Suspicious Network Tool Launched Inside A Container

Last updated 3 months ago on 2025-03-12

Created 3 months ago on 2025-03-12

About

This rule detects commonly abused network utilities running inside a container. Network utilities like nc, nmap, dig, tcpdump, ngrep, telnet, mitmproxy, zmap can be used for malicious purposes such as network reconnaissance, monitoring, or exploitation, and should be monitored closely within a container.

Tags

Domain: ContainerOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryTactic: Command and ControlTactic: ReconnaissanceData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql

Severity

low

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Network Service Discovery (T1046)(opens in a new tab or window)

Command and Control (TA0011)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Ingress Tool Transfer (T1105)(opens in a new tab or window)

Reconnaissance (TA0043)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Active Scanning (T1595)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

There is a potential for false positives if the container is used for legitimate tasks that require the use of network utilities, such as network troubleshooting, testing or system monitoring. It is important to investigate any alerts generated by this rule to determine if they are indicative of malicious activity or part of legitimate container activity.

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.process*
Related Integrations: endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)
Query

process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and
process.entry_leader.entry_meta.type == "container" and process.name in (
  "nc.traditional", "nc", "ncat", "netcat", "nmap", "dig", "nslookup", "tcpdump", "tshark", "ngrep", "telnet",
  "mitmproxy", "socat", "zmap", "masscan", "zgrab"
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Network Tool Launched Inside A Container 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).