Privilege Escalation via GDB CAP_SYS_PTRACE

Last updated a year ago on 2025-02-04

Created 2 years ago on 2024-01-09

About

Identifies instances where GDB (granted the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability) is executed, after which the user's access is elevated to UID/GID 0 (root). In Linux, the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability grants a process the ability to use the ptrace system call, which is typically used for debugging and allows the process to trace and control other processes. Attackers may leverage this capability to hook and inject into a process that is running with root permissions in order to escalate their privileges to root.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Process Injection (T1055)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

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

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗sequence by host.id, process.entry_leader.entity_id with maxspan=1m
  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and process.name == "gdb" and
   (process.thread.capabilities.effective : "CAP_SYS_PTRACE" or process.thread.capabilities.permitted : "CAP_SYS_PTRACE") and
   user.id != "0"]
  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and
   process.name != null and user.id == "0"]

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Privilege Escalation via GDB CAP_SYS_PTRACE 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).