Suspicious kswapd0 Masquerading Miner Process

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion → Impact

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
- T1496Resource Hijacking

What it detects

This rule detects a process named kswapd0 executing from a user-writable path rather than existing only as a kernel thread which the Outlaw botnet uses to disguise its UPX-packed XMRig miner. Naming the miner after a legitimate kernel worker hides it from casual process inspection. Any on-disk kswapd0 binary in a home or tmp directory is anomalous.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious kswapd0 Masquerading Miner Process

Pivot detection · T1036.005 · 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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