Elastic Security Detection Rules

Potential Linux Credential Dumping via Unshadow

Last updated 15 days ago on 2025-03-20
Created 2 years ago on 2023-02-27

About

Identifies the execution of the unshadow utility which is part of John the Ripper, a password-cracking tool on the host machine. Malicious actors can use the utility to retrieve the combined contents of the '/etc/shadow' and '/etc/password' files. Using the combined file generated from the utility, the malicious threat actors can use them as input for password-cracking utilities or prepare themselves for future operations by gathering credential information of the victim.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Credential AccessData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: CrowdstrikeData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ OS Credential Dumping (T1003)(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
endgame-*logs-crowdstrike.fdr*logs-endpoint.events.process*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

crowdstrike(opens in a new tab or window)

sentinel_one_cloud_funnel(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action in ("exec", "exec_event", "start", "ProcessRollup2") and
process.name == "unshadow" and process.args_count >= 3

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Linux Credential Dumping via Unshadow 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).