Interactive Privilege Boundary Enumeration Detected via Defend for Containers

Last updated 5 days ago on 2026-02-06

Created 5 days ago on 2026-02-06

About

This rule detects the execution of the "id", "whoami", "capsh", "getcap", and "lsns" commands inside a container. These commands are used to enumerate the privilege boundary of the container, which can be used by an adversary to gain information about the container and the services running inside it.

Tags

Data Source: Elastic Defend for ContainersDomain: ContainerOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryLanguage: eql

Severity

low

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Container and Resource Discovery (T1613)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ System Information Discovery (T1082)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

There is a potential for false positives if the "id", "whoami", "capsh", "getcap", or "lsns" commands are used for legitimate purposes, such as debugging or troubleshooting. For example, an operator may use the "id" command to verify the identity of the current user, or the "whoami" command to verify the current user. 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(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type: Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns: logs-cloud_defend.process*
Related Integrations: cloud_defend(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and process.interactive == true and (
  (process.name in ("id", "whoami", "capsh", "getcap", "lsns")) or
  (process.args in (
     "id", "/bin/id", "/usr/bin/id", "/usr/local/bin/id",
     "whoami", "/bin/whoami", "/usr/bin/whoami", "/usr/local/bin/whoami",
     "capsh", "/bin/capsh", "/usr/bin/capsh", "/usr/local/bin/capsh",
     "getcap", "/bin/getcap", "/usr/bin/getcap", "/usr/local/bin/getcap",
     "lsns", "/bin/lsns", "/usr/bin/lsns", "/usr/local/bin/lsns"
   ) and
    /* default exclusion list to not FP on default multi-process commands */
    not process.args in (
      "man", "/bin/man", "/usr/bin/man", "/usr/local/bin/man",
      "chmod", "/bin/chmod", "/usr/bin/chmod", "/usr/local/bin/chmod",
      "chown", "/bin/chown", "/usr/bin/chown", "/usr/local/bin/chown"
    )
  )
) and container.id like "?*"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Interactive Privilege Boundary Enumeration Detected via Defend for Containers 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).