Linux Restricted Shell Breakout via the vi command

Identifies Linux binary find abuse to break out from restricted environments by spawning an interactive system shell. The vi/vim editor is the standard text editor in Linux distributions, and the activity of spawning a shell is not a standard use of this binary by a user or system administrator. This could potentially indicate a malicious actor attempting to improve the capabilities or stability of their access.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5m

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

https://gtfobins.github.io/gtfobins/vi/

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Linux
Threat Detection
Execution
GTFOBins

Version: 2

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

edit

process where event.type == "start" and process.parent.name in ("vi", "vim") and process.parent.args == "-c" and process.parent.args in (":!/bin/bash", ":!/bin/sh", ":!bash", ":!sh") and process.name in ("bash", "sh")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Execution
- ID: TA0002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0002/
Technique:
- Name: Command and Scripting Interpreter
- ID: T1059
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Unix Shell
- ID: T1059.004
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/004/

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