Suspicious kworker Masquerade Process Initiating Network Connection on Linux

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1036.004Masquerade Task or Service
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a process masquerading as a kernel kworker thread that initiates an outbound network connection as observed with Linux rootkit implants in Elastic research. Genuine kworker kernel threads never open network sockets, so a userland process using this name to beacon indicates a hidden implant.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious kworker Masquerade Process Initiating Network Connection on Linux

Pivot detection · T1036.004 · 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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