Suspicious Linux CoinMiner Watchdog Staging in Shared Memory (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
linux
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-05
Updated
2026-09-05

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Defense Evasion

  6. Cred Access

  7. Discovery

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a watchdog command that downloads the miner into a hidden .Sys_cache_backup file under dev shm using curl with a wget fallback as observed in the Linux SSH CoinMiner campaign. Fetching an executable into shared memory to survive removal is a hallmark of this miner.

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 Linux CoinMiner Watchdog Staging in Shared Memory (via process_creation)
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.