Suspicious Timestomping of PHP Webshell in Ivanti CSA Webroot via touch (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1070.006Timestomp
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of touch with an explicit date argument to backdate a PHP file inside the Ivanti Cloud Service Appliance LANDesk broker webroot, the timestomping behavior used by the Houken intrusion set to blend planted webshells with legitimate appliance files. Adversaries leverage timestamp manipulation to frustrate forensic triage, making this a strong signal of an attacker actively concealing webshell drops on the appliance.

Reporting behind it

Related detections8 linkedT1070.006 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious File Timestamp Manipulation via PowerShell (via process_creation)

Suspicious System Time Changed (via security)

Linux Service File Touch with Timestamp Argument

Windows File Creation Time Altered to a Previous Year

PowerShell timestomping via file timestamp property and setter usage (Windows)

macOS process using touch to modify file timestamps and hide file changes

Linux: Detect touch commands used to alter file timestamps with -t/-a/-c/-m/-r flags

Windows Security Event 4616 for System Time Changes by Non-Service Accounts

Suspicious Timestomping of PHP Webshell in Ivanti CSA Webroot via touch (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1070.006 · 8 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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