Detecting MITRE ATT&CK: Privilege escalation with Falco

The blog post explores the concept of privilege escalation within the MITRE ATT&CK framework and discusses how open-source tools like Falco can help detect such security threats in containerized environments. Privilege escalation involves exploiting security flaws to gain higher access permissions within a system, often through misconfigurations or overlooked permissions, and covers 12 techniques, including abuse of elevation control mechanisms, SUID and SGID bits, sudo caching, and world-writable file permissions. Falco, an open-source runtime security tool, plays a crucial role in identifying anomalous activities by monitoring system calls and generating event streams, which can then be used to create specific detection rules. These rules, when mapped to MITRE ATT&CK techniques, enable security teams to enhance threat detection and streamline response processes effectively. The post underscores the importance of proactive security measures and offers insights into using Falco to detect and prevent privilege escalation attacks, as well as highlighting commercial offerings like Sysdig Secure for comprehensive container security.