Malicious Systemd Service Masquerading as Sd-Pam Helper

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1543.002Systemd Service
Priv Esc
- T1543.002Systemd Service
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of a systemd unit file named sd-pam.service, a name TuxBot v3 borrows from the legitimate PAM session helper which is a binary and never ships as a service. The botnet installs this always-restart unit for resilient persistence on Linux and IoT hosts. Detecting the bogus service file exposes systemd persistence hiding behind a trusted system name.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1543.002 — drag to rearrange

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Malicious systemd-daemon Masquerading Binary Execution on Linux

Suspicious Masquerading systemd Unit display-managerd Creation via File System

Suspicious Systemd Service Unit Written to System Directory (via process_creation)

Suspicious Systemd Service Unit Creation In System Directory

Malicious Systemd Service Masquerading as Sd-Pam Helper

Pivot detection · T1543.002 · 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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