Potential SSH Password Grabbing via strace

Last updated 11 days ago on 2025-11-24
Created 25 days ago on 2025-11-10

About

Detects potential SSH password grabbing via the use of strace on sshd processes. Attackers may use strace to capture sensitive information, such as passwords, by tracing system calls made by the sshd process. This rule looks for a sequence of events where an sshd process ends followed closely by the start of a strace process. This may be indicative of an attacker attempting to capture SSH credentials.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceTactic: Credential AccessData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Credential Access (TA0006)(opens in a new tab or window)

Persistence (TA0003)(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
sequence by host.id with maxspan=3s
  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "end" and process.name == "sshd"]
  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and process.name == "strace"]

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential SSH Password Grabbing via strace 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).