Suspicious OpenClaw Skill File Modification via File Event

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Category
file_event
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-23
Updated
2026-10-23

ATT&CK techniques

Execution
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation or modification of files under the OpenClaw skills directory, the mechanism attackers abuse to implant malicious agent skills that execute on the next agent run. Because skills are executable instructions loaded automatically, unexpected writes to the .openclaw/skills path indicate tampering that leads to code execution and credential theft.

Related detections9 linkedT1059.004 — drag to rearrange
Possible TP-Link Command Injection via WlanNetworkRpm Endpoint (via webserver)
Suspicious Base64 Decoded Shell Dropper via Command Line
Possible Mirai IoT Payload Staging via chmod on Linux (via process_creation)
Malicious Command Injection Probe via node Spawning Shell Arithmetic Echo (via process_creation)
Malicious Reverse Shell via bash dev tcp Redirection (via process_creation)
Suspicious Base64 Bash Execution via nohup on macOS via ClickFix (via process_creation)
Suspicious GeoServer Java Process Spawning Download Utility
Malicious Linux Payload Download and Execution Chain via Wget and Chmod (via process_creation)
Malicious POOLRAT Backdoor Log File Creation (via file_event)
Suspicious OpenClaw Skill File Modification via File Event
Pivot detection · T1059.004 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.