Environment Variable Enumeration Detected via Defend for Containers

Last updated 7 days ago on 2026-01-27
Created 13 days ago on 2026-01-21

About

This rule detects the execution of the "env" or "printenv" commands inside a container. The "env" command is used to display all the environment variables for the current shell, and the "printenv" command is used to print the values of environment variables. These commands are used to enumerate the environment variables of the container, which can be used by an adversary to gain information about the container and the services running inside it.
Tags
Data Source: Elastic Defend for ContainersDomain: ContainerOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryLanguage: eql
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Discovery (TA0007)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
There is a potential for false positives if the "env" or "printenv" commands are used for legitimate purposes, such as debugging or troubleshooting. It is important to investigate any alerts generated by this rule to determine if they are indicative of malicious activity or part of legitimate container activity.
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-cloud_defend.process*
Related Integrations

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

Query
text code block:
process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and ( process.name in ("env", "printenv") or ( /* Account for tools that execute utilities as a subprocess, in this case the target utility name will appear as a process arg */ process.name in ("bash", "dash", "sh", "tcsh", "csh", "zsh", "ksh", "fish", "busybox") and process.args in ( "env", "/bin/env", "/usr/bin/env", "/usr/local/bin/env", "printenv", "/bin/printenv", "/usr/bin/printenv", "/usr/local/bin/printenv" ) and /* default exclusion list to not FP on default multi-process commands */ not process.args in ( "which", "/bin/which", "/usr/bin/which", "/usr/local/bin/which", "man", "/bin/man", "/usr/bin/man", "/usr/local/bin/man", "chmod", "/bin/chmod", "/usr/bin/chmod", "/usr/local/bin/chmod", "chown", "/bin/chown", "/usr/bin/chown", "/usr/local/bin/chown" ) ) ) and process.interactive == true and container.id like "*"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Environment Variable Enumeration Detected via Defend for Containers 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).