Malicious setcap Assigning cap_sys_admin for GameOverlay Privilege Escalation (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1068Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
- T1548Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism
Defense Evasion
- T1548Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects setcap granting effective inheritable and permitted file capabilities such as cap_sys_admin to an executable, the step the GameOverlay Ubuntu OverlayFS exploit CVE-2023-2640 and CVE-2023-32629 uses to smuggle privileged capabilities across a copy-up. Assigning powerful capabilities to non-root executables is a strong local privilege escalation indicator.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious setcap Assigning cap_sys_admin for GameOverlay Privilege Escalation (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1068 · 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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