Potential Process Name Stomping with Prctl

Last updated 8 months ago on 2025-05-05

Created a year ago on 2025-01-09

About

This rule leverages Auditd data to detect the use of the `prctl` syscall to potentially hide a process by changing its name. The `prctl` syscall is used to control various process attributes. Attackers can use this syscall to change the name of a process to a hidden directory or file, making it harder to detect. The query looks for the `prctl` syscall with the `PR_SET_NAME` argument set to `f` (PR_SET_NAME is used to set the name of a process).

Tags

Data Source: Auditd ManagerDomain: EndpointOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionLanguage: eql

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Defense Evasion (TA0005)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Masquerading (T1036)(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: logs-auditd_manager.auditd-*auditbeat-*
Related Integrations: auditd_manager(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗process where host.os.type == "linux" and auditd.data.syscall == "prctl" and auditd.data.a0 == "f" and
process.executable like (
  "/boot/*", "/dev/shm/*", "/etc/cron.*/*", "/etc/init.d/*", "/var/run/*", "/etc/update-motd.d/*",
  "/tmp/*", "/var/log/*", "/var/tmp/*", "/home/*", "/run/shm/*", "/run/*", "./*"
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Process Name Stomping with Prctl 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).