Network Connections Initiated Through XDG Autostart Entry

Last updated 3 months ago on 2025-02-04
Created a year ago on 2024-06-03

About

Detects network connections initiated through Cross-Desktop Group (XDG) autostart entries for GNOME and XFCE-based Linux distributions. XDG Autostart entries can be used to execute arbitrary commands or scripts when a user logs in. This rule helps to identify potential malicious activity where an attacker may have modified XDG autostart scripts to establish persistence on the system.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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.network*logs-endpoint.events.process*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
sequence by host.id, process.entity_id with maxspan=1s
  [process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and (
     (process.parent.executable == "/usr/bin/xfce4-session") or
     (process.executable == "/bin/sh" and process.args == "-e" and process.args == "-u" and
      process.args == "-c" and process.args : "export GIO_LAUNCHED_DESKTOP_FILE_PID=$$;*")
   )
  ]
  [network where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "connection_attempted" and not (
     destination.ip == null or destination.ip == "0.0.0.0" or cidrmatch(
       destination.ip, "10.0.0.0/8", "127.0.0.0/8", "169.254.0.0/16", "172.16.0.0/12", "192.0.0.0/24", "192.0.0.0/29",
       "192.0.0.8/32", "192.0.0.9/32", "192.0.0.10/32", "192.0.0.170/32", "192.0.0.171/32", "192.0.2.0/24",
       "192.31.196.0/24", "192.52.193.0/24", "192.168.0.0/16", "192.88.99.0/24", "224.0.0.0/4", "100.64.0.0/10",
       "192.175.48.0/24","198.18.0.0/15", "198.51.100.0/24", "203.0.113.0/24", "240.0.0.0/4", "::1", "FE80::/10",
       "FF00::/8", "172.31.0.0/16"
       ) or
       process.name in (
         "telegram-desktop", "firefox", "gnome-calculator", "remmina", "spotify", "librewolf", "fortitraylauncher",
         "flameshot", "thunderbird", "update-manager", "warp-terminal", "obs", "transmission-gtk"
       )
     )
  ]

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Network Connections Initiated Through XDG Autostart Entry 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).