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Suspicious Termination of ESXI Processedit

Identifies instances where VMware processes, such as "vmware-vmx" or "vmx," are terminated on a Linux system by a "kill" command. The rule monitors for the "end" event type, which signifies the termination of a process. The presence of a "kill" command as the parent process for terminating VMware processes may indicate that a threat actor is attempting to interfere with the virtualized environment on the targeted system.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5m

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

  • Domain: Endpoint
  • OS: Linux
  • Use Case: Threat Detection
  • Tactic: Impact

Version: 2

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule queryedit

process where host.os.type == "linux" and event.type == "end" and process.name : ("vmware-vmx", "vmx")
and process.parent.name : "kill"

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

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