Detect Compute Hijacking in Elastic Security
Adversaries may leverage the compute resources of co-opted systems to mine cryptocurrency or perform other resource-intensive tasks, degrading system performance and hosted service availability. The most prevalent form is unauthorized cryptocurrency mining (cryptojacking), typically targeting Monero (XMR) via XMRig or derivative tools due to CPU-friendliness and transaction privacy. Threat actors including TeamTNT, Blue Mockingbird, Rocke, APT41, Kinsing, and Hildegard have deployed miners as follow-on payloads targeting Windows endpoints, Linux servers, and containerized environments. Miners connect to mining pools over stratum protocol (commonly ports 3333, 4444, 14444) and are often deployed alongside rootkits, cron-based persistence, and competing miner kill scripts.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Impact
- Technique
- T1496 Resource Hijacking
- Sub-technique
- T1496.001 Compute Hijacking
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1496/001/
Elastic Detection Query
sequence by host.name with maxspan=5m
[process where event.type == "start" and (
process.name in ("xmrig", "xmrig-notls", "xmrig-cuda", "xmrig-amd", "minerd", "cpuminer", "cpuminer-opt", "ethminer", "nbminer", "t-rex", "phoenixminer", "nanominer", "xmr-stak", "xmrstak", "rhminer", "kdevtmpfsi", "kinsing", "sysupdate", "networkservice", "sysguard", "kerberods")
or process.args : ("stratum+tcp://*", "stratum+ssl://*", "--donate-level", "--mining-threads", "--coin monero", "--coin xmr", "pool.minexmr*", "pool.hashvault*", "supportxmr.com*", "nanopool.org*", "cryptonight", "randomx", "--max-cpu-usage", "-o stratum*")
)]
[network where event.type == "connection" and
destination.port in (3333, 4444, 5555, 7777, 14444, 45700, 3032, 8008, 9999, 14433, 45560) and
not destination.ip : ("10.*", "172.16.*", "172.17.*", "172.18.*", "172.19.*", "172.20.*", "172.21.*", "172.22.*", "172.23.*", "172.24.*", "172.25.*", "172.26.*", "172.27.*", "172.28.*", "172.29.*", "172.30.*", "172.31.*", "192.168.*", "127.*")
]Detects cryptocurrency mining activity by correlating miner process execution with outbound connections to known mining pool ports. Uses EQL sequence to link process start events with subsequent network connections within a 5-minute window. Covers XMRig and derivative tools targeting Monero as well as GPU miners.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- Legitimate benchmark tools using similar port ranges (e.g., network performance testing on port 5555)
- Security researchers running miner samples in sandboxed environments
- CTF participants running mining-related challenges on corporate infrastructure
Other platforms for T1496.001
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 4 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1XMRig Miner Execution with Pool Arguments (Windows)
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=xmrig.exe, CommandLine containing '--donate-level', 'stratum+tcp://', '--max-cpu-usage'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Network connection attempt to 127.0.0.1:3333 (will fail). Security Event ID 4688 if command line auditing enabled. High CPU utilization visible in performance counters immediately after launch.
- Test 2XMRig Miner Execution via PowerShell Download Cradle (Windows)
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create for powershell.exe with '-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -WindowStyle Hidden'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Network connection attempt to 127.0.0.1:8080 from powershell.exe. PowerShell ScriptBlock Log Event ID 4104 with full download cradle content. If the download succeeded: second Sysmon Event ID 1 for svchost32.exe with mining arguments.
- Test 3Miner Persistence via Linux Cron Job
Expected signal: Linux auditd: syscall=execve for crontab command. On next cron tick: process creation for bash/sh spawning curl with mining-related URL, then chmod +x on /tmp/kdevtmpfsi, then execution of /tmp/kdevtmpfsi. If MDE Linux agent enrolled: DeviceProcessEvents showing cron as initiating process spawning curl and the miner binary.
- Test 4Mining Pool Network Connection Simulation
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 3: three network connection events from powershell.exe to 127.0.0.1 on ports 3333, 4444, and 14444. Connections will fail (no listener) but the event is generated on the SYN attempt. Windows Firewall log entries for outbound connection attempts on mining ports.
References (13)
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1496/001/
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/hildegard-malware-teamtnt/
- https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/19/e/infected-cryptocurrency-mining-containers-target-docker-hosts-with-exposed-apis-use-shodan-to-find-additional-victims.html
- https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/20/i/war-of-linux-cryptocurrency-miners-a-battle-for-resources.html
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/lucifer-new-cryptojacking-and-ddos-hybrid-malware/
- https://redcanary.com/blog/blue-mockingbird-cryptominer/
- https://www.aquasec.com/blog/threat-alert-kinsing-malware-container-vulnerability/
- https://sysdig.com/blog/cryptojacking-cloud-security-kinsing/
- https://www.lacework.com/blog/teamtnt-the-first-crypto-mining-worm-to-steal-aws-credentials/
- https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-endpoint/advanced-hunting-deviceprocessevents-table
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-endpoint/advanced-hunting-devicenetworkevents-table
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1496/T1496.md
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