Abnormal Process ID or Lock File Created

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-12-18
Created 4 years ago on 2022-05-11

About

Identifies the creation of a Process ID (PID), lock or reboot file created in temporary file storage paradigm (tmpfs) directory /var/run. On Linux, the PID files typically hold the process ID to track previous copies running and manage other tasks. Certain Linux malware use the /var/run directory for holding data, executables and other tasks, disguising itself or these files as legitimate PID files.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionThreat: BPFDoorData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Elastic EndgameLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

False Positive Examples
False-Positives (FP) can appear if the PID file is legitimate and holding a process ID as intended. To differentiate, if the PID file is an executable or larger than 10 bytes, it should be ruled suspicious.
License
Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
New Terms Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-endpoint.events.*endgame-*
Related Integrations

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

Query
text code block:
host.os.type:linux and event.category:file and event.action:(creation or file_create_event) and file.extension:(pid or lock or reboot) and file.path:(/var/run/* or /run/*) and ( (process.name : ( bash or dash or sh or tcsh or csh or zsh or ksh or fish or ash or touch or nano or vim or vi or editor or mv or cp) ) or ( process.executable : ( ./* or /tmp/* or /var/tmp/* or /dev/shm/* or /var/run/* or /boot/* or /srv/* or /run/* )) ) and not ( process.executable : ( /tmp/newroot/* or /run/containerd/* or /run/k3s/containerd/* or /run/k0s/container* or /snap/* or /vz/* or /var/lib/docker/* or /etc/*/universal-hooks/pkgs/mysql-community-server/* or /var/lib/snapd/* or /etc/rubrik/* or /run/udev/data/* ) or process.name : ( go or git or containerd* or snap-confine or cron or crond or sshd or unattended-upgrade or vzctl or ifup or rpcbind or runc or gitlab-runner-helper or elastic-agent or metricbeat or redis-server or libvirt_leaseshelper or s6-ipcserver-socketbinder or xinetd or libvirtd or veeamdeploymentsvc or dnsmasq or virtlogd or lynis or veeamtransport or bash or dash or sh or touch or podman or chrome_crashpad_handler or snmpd or automount or chrome or yumBackend.py or rhsmcertd-worker or snapd or cp or dotnet or leapp or haproxy or multipathd or falcond or python* or atopacctd or postmaster or httpd or pulseaudio or iptables or atd or package-cleanup or local ) or file.name : ( jem.*.pid or lynis.pid or redis.pid or yum.pid or MFS.pid or jenkins.pid or nvmupdate.pid or openlitespeed.pid or rhnsd.pid ) or file.path : (/run/containerd/* or /var/run/docker/containerd/* or /var/run/jem*.pid) )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Abnormal Process ID or Lock File Created 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).