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T1003.007 Proc Filesystem

Adversaries may gather credentials from the proc filesystem or /proc. The proc filesystem is a pseudo-filesystem used as an interface to kernel data structures for Linux based systems managing virtual memory. For each process, the /proc/<PID>/maps file shows how memory is mapped within the process’s virtual address space. And /proc/<PID>/mem, exposed for debugging purposes, provides access to the process’s virtual address space.52

When executing with root privileges, adversaries can search these memory locations for all processes on a system that contain patterns indicative of credentials. Adversaries may use regex patterns, such as grep -E “^[0-9a-f-]* r” /proc/”$pid”/maps | cut -d’ ’ -f 1, to look for fixed strings in memory structures or cached hashes.1 When running without privileged access, processes can still view their own virtual memory locations. Some services or programs may save credentials in clear text inside the process’s memory.43

If running as or with the permissions of a web browser, a process can search the /maps & /mem locations for common website credential patterns (that can also be used to find adjacent memory within the same structure) in which hashes or cleartext credentials may be located.

Item Value
ID T1003.007
Sub-techniques T1003.001, T1003.002, T1003.003, T1003.004, T1003.005, T1003.006, T1003.007, T1003.008
Tactics TA0006
Platforms Linux
Version 1.2
Created 11 February 2020
Last Modified 24 October 2025

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0349 LaZagne LaZagne can use the <PID>/maps and <PID>/mem files to identify regex patterns to dump cleartext passwords from the browser’s process memory.65
S0179 MimiPenguin MimiPenguin can use the <PID>/maps and <PID>/mem file to search for regex patterns and dump the process memory.45
S1109 PACEMAKER PACEMAKER has the ability to extract credentials from OS memory.7

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1027 Password Policies Ensure that root accounts have complex, unique passwords across all systems on the network.
M1026 Privileged Account Management Follow best practices in restricting access to privileged accounts to avoid hostile programs from accessing sensitive information.

References

  1. Atomic Red Team. (2023, November). T1003.007 - OS Credential Dumping: Proc Filesystem. Retrieved March 28, 2024. ↩

  2. baeldung. (2022, April 8). Understanding the Linux /proc/id/maps File. Retrieved March 31, 2023. ↩

  3. Carlos Polop. (2023, March 5). Linux Privilege Escalation. Retrieved March 31, 2023. ↩

  4. Gregal, H. (2017, May 12). MimiPenguin. Retrieved December 5, 2017. ↩↩

  5. Huseyin Can YUCEEL & Picus Labs. (2022, March 22). Retrieved March 31, 2023. ↩↩↩

  6. Zanni, A. (n.d.). The LaZagne Project !!!. Retrieved December 14, 2018. ↩

  7. Perez, D. et al. (2021, April 20). Check Your Pulse: Suspected APT Actors Leverage Authentication Bypass Techniques and Pulse Secure Zero-Day. Retrieved February 5, 2024. ↩