Malicious APT36 Crontab Persistence Logging to Shared Memory via Command Line (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1053.003Cron
Persistence
- T1053.003Cron
Priv Esc
- T1053.003Cron
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects cron job execution that writes its log to /dev/shm/mycron, the persistence and logging artifact used by APT-36 Linux malware. It is associated with APT-36 cyber espionage against India using new Linux malware reported by Uptycs. Routing cron output into the volatile /dev/shm shared memory filesystem hides activity from disk-based inspection, so this specific path indicates covert scheduled-task persistence.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious APT36 Crontab Persistence Logging to Shared Memory via Command Line (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1053.003 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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