name: Linux Possible Ssh Key File Creation id: c04ef40c-72da-11ec-8eac-acde48001122 version: 1 date: '2022-01-11' author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk status: production type: Anomaly description: This analytic is to look for possible ssh key file creation on ~/.ssh/ folder. This technique is commonly abused by threat actors and adversaries to gain persistence and privilege escalation to the targeted host. by creating ssh private and public key and passing the public key to the attacker server. threat actor can access remotely the machine using openssh daemon service. data_source: - Sysmon Event ID 11 search: selection1: TargetFilename: '*/.ssh*' condition: selection1 how_to_implement: To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the file name, file path, and process_guid executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you can use the Add-on for Linux Sysmon from Splunkbase. known_false_positives: Administrator or network operator can create file in ~/.ssh folders for automation purposes. Please update the filter macros to remove false positives. references: - https://www.hackingarticles.in/ssh-penetration-testing-port-22/ - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/004/ tags: analytic_story: - Linux Privilege Escalation - Linux Persistence Techniques - Linux Living Off The Land asset_type: Endpoint confidence: 60 impact: 60 message: A file $file_name$ is created in $file_path$ on $dest$ mitre_attack_id: - T1098.004 - T1098 observable: - name: dest type: Hostname role: - Victim product: - Splunk Enterprise - Splunk Enterprise Security - Splunk Cloud risk_score: 36 security_domain: endpoint tests: - name: True Positive Test attack_data: - data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1098.004/ssh_authorized_keys/sysmon_linux.log source: Syslog:Linux-Sysmon/Operational sourcetype: sysmon_linux