Strace Process Activity

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Strace runs in a privileged context and can be used to escape restrictive environments by instantiating a shell in order to elevate privileges or move laterally.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

  • auditbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

Runs every: 5 minutes

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

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Linux
  • Threat Detection

Version: 6 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.6.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.2

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License

Potential false positives

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Strace is a dual-use tool that can be used for benign or malicious activity. Some normal use of this command may originate from developers or SREs engaged in debugging or system call tracing.

Rule query

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event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
process.name:strace

Rule version history

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Version 6 (7.11.2 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 5 (7.10.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (7.9.1 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 3 (7.9.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    process.name:strace and event.action:executed
Version 2 (7.7.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    process.name: strace and event.action:executed