Malicious Child Process Spawned From n8n Node Process

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
- T1190Exploit Public-Facing Application
Execution
- T1059.004Unix Shell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1033System Owner/User Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a Node.js process running n8n spawning shell, discovery or downloader child processes such as sh, whoami, wget or curl, the exploitation behavior of the Zerobot botnet abusing the CVE-2025-68613 expression sandbox escape. The n8n workflow engine should not launch system commands, so these child spawns indicate remote code execution with n8n process privileges. This pattern reflects active post-exploitation on the host.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious Child Process Spawned From n8n Node Process

Pivot detection · T1059.004 · 9 related

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