Suspicious su Execution From Uncommon Parent Process on Linux (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1068Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
- T1548.003Sudo and Sudo Caching
Defense Evasion
- T1548.003Sudo and Sudo Caching
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the su binary being launched by a parent process that is not a common interactive shell or sudo, a privilege-escalation pattern tied to CVE-2026-31431 Copy Fail exploitation. Attackers invoke su from non-shell contexts to elevate to root after gaining initial code execution.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious su Execution From Uncommon Parent Process on Linux (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1068 · 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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