Suspicious Shell Profile Persistence Modification (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
linux
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-03
Updated
2026-09-03

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 commands that append to shell startup files such as .bashrc, .bash_profile, .zshrc or /etc/profile.d, which run automatically at each login and are abused for durable execution on Linux. Shell-profile persistence is a technique tracked in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report. Detecting the modification surfaces a login-triggered foothold.

Related detections2 linkedT1546.004 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Koske Persistence via Systemd Service and Shell Profile Hijack (via process_creation)
Linux Auditd: Unix Shell Configuration File Modification
Suspicious Shell Profile Persistence Modification (via process_creation)
Pivot detection · T1546.004 · 2 related

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