A netcat process is engaging in network activity on a Linux host. Netcat is often used as a persistence mechanism by exporting a reverse shell or by serving a shell on a listening port. Netcat is also sometimes used for data exfiltration.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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:

Version: 8

Rule authors:

Rule license: Elastic License v2

sequence by process.entity_id
  [process where (process.name == "nc" or process.name == "ncat" or process.name == "netcat" or
                  process.name == "netcat.openbsd" or process.name == "netcat.traditional") and
     event.type == "start"]
  [network where (process.name == "nc" or process.name == "ncat" or process.name == "netcat" or
                  process.name == "netcat.openbsd" or process.name == "netcat.traditional")]