Suspicious Netcat Reverse Shell via Named Pipe on Linux via Process Creation (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.004Unix Shell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1071.001Web Protocols
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the classic Linux netcat reverse shell built on a FIFO created with mknod, the interactive shell technique Red Canary covers in its detection engineer guide to Linux. Chaining a named pipe with netcat backconnects a shell to an attacker while avoiding the need for a netcat build that supports the exec flag.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1071.001 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Netcat Reverse Shell via Named Pipe on Linux via Process Creation (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1071.001 · 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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