Elastic Security Detection Rules

Linux User Account Credential Modification

Last updated 10 days ago on 2025-02-21
Created 10 days ago on 2025-02-21

About

This rule detects Linux user account credential modification events where the echo command is used to directly echo a password into the passwd utility. This technique is used by malware to automate the process of user account credential modification on Linux systems post-infection.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Account Manipulation (T1098)(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
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.name in ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish") and
process.command_line like~ "*echo*passwd*" and
not (
  process.parent.command_line == "runc init" or
  process.parent.executable in ("/usr/bin/make", "/bin/make")
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Linux User Account Credential Modification 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).