Malicious Cryptominer Masquerading as Kubernetes pause Container

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
linux
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-07-08
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion → Impact
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

What it detects

This rule detects execution of a binary named pause from the /var/tmp directory. Wiz Research observed the DERO cryptojacking campaign disguising its miner as the legitimate Kubernetes pause container while writing it to /var/tmp, so this wrong path plus trusted name combination indicates masquerading and resource hijacking.

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Malicious Cryptominer Masquerading as Kubernetes pause Container
Pivot detection · T1496 · 9 related

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