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System Binary Symlink to Suspicious Location

This rule detects the creation of a symbolic link from a system binary to a suspicious and writable location. This activity may indicate an attacker's attempt to evade detection by behavioral rules that depend on…

Description

This rule detects the creation of a symbolic link from a system binary to a suspicious and writable location. This activity may indicate an attacker's attempt to evade detection by behavioral rules that depend on predefined process parent/child relationships. By executing the symlinked variant of a binary instead of the original, the attacker aims to bypass these rules. Through the new_terms rule type, this rule can identify uncommon parent processes that may indicate the presence of a malicious symlink.

Detection logic

Its licence does not clear it for publishing here

Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.

Detection requirements

Platform
ESXiLinuxmacOSOffice SuiteWindows

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 3 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.

Log source category
event_index

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