Potential Java Service Exploitation via Suspicious Child Process

Last updated 8 days ago on 2026-08-26
Created 5 years ago on 2021-12-10

About

Identifies a Java process that accepts an inbound network connection and then spawns a suspicious child process. This may indicate exploitation of a Java service that runs attacker-controlled code, such as one that deserializes untrusted objects.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxOS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionUse Case: VulnerabilityData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Execution (TA0002)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Initial Access (TA0001)(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
auditbeat-*logs-endpoint.events.*
Related Integrations

endpoint(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
sequence by host.id with maxspan=5s [network where event.action == "connection_accepted" and network.direction == "ingress" and process.name : "java" and destination.port < 49152 and source.port >= 32768] by process.pid [process where event.type == "start" and /* Suspicious JAVA child process */ process.parent.name : "java" and process.name : ( "sh", "bash", "dash", "ksh", "tcsh", "zsh", "ash", "mksh", "busybox", "curl", "wget", "perl*", "python*", "ruby*", "php*", "lua*", "socat", "nc", "ncat", "netcat", "netcat.openbsd", "netcat.traditional", "nc.openbsd", "nc.traditional", "nohup", "setsid", "disown", "hostname", "whoami", "id" ) and not process.command_line like~ ( "bash -c ulimit -u", "bash /opt/flutter/bin/flutter*", "bash -c echo $$", "/bin/bash /opt/python3/bin/jira*", "/bin/sh -c env LC_ALL=C /usr/sbin/lpc status*" )] by process.parent.pid

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Java Service Exploitation via Suspicious Child Process 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).