Potential Sudo Token Manipulation via Process Injection

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Potential Sudo Token Manipulation via Process Injection

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This rule detects potential sudo token manipulation attacks through process injection by monitoring the use of a debugger (gdb) process followed by a successful uid change event during the execution of the sudo process. A sudo token manipulation attack is performed by injecting into a process that has a valid sudo token, which can then be used by attackers to activate their own sudo token. This attack requires ptrace to be enabled in conjunction with the existence of a living process that has a valid sudo token with the same uid as the current user.

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:

Tags:

  • Domain: Endpoint
  • OS: Linux
  • Use Case: Threat Detection
  • Tactic: Privilege Escalation
  • Data Source: Elastic Defend

Version: 4

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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sequence by host.id, process.session_leader.entity_id with maxspan=15s
[ process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.action == "exec" and event.type == "start" and
  process.name == "gdb" and process.user.id != "0" and process.group.id != "0" ]
[ process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.action == "uid_change" and event.type == "change" and
  process.name == "sudo" and process.user.id == "0" and process.group.id == "0" ]

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM