AN0261: Analytic 0261
Detects unusual use of `cron` or `sleep` loops inside containers executing unfamiliar scripts or binaries repeatedly.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic matters because repeated execution of unfamiliar scripts or binaries inside containers can indicate unwanted persistence, automation, or hidden workload behavior that may outlive a single command. For leaders, the key issue is whether container activity is observable enough to distinguish expected scheduled jobs from unusual loops using cron or sleep.
Executive priority
Prioritize this as a container visibility and response-readiness question: can the organization prove what is repeatedly running inside production containers, who approved it, and whether it matches the intended workload? This supports operational resilience, incident triage, and audit evidence for container governance. The supplied ATT&CK object does not identify a tactic or specific threat actor, so prioritization should be based on local container criticality and exposure.
Technical view
Validate whether SOC and incident response workflows can see process execution inside containers, especially cron usage, sleep-based loops, command lines, parent-child process relationships, and repeated execution of unfamiliar scripts or binaries. Because no official detection logic is provided, teams should build environment-specific baselines for expected recurring container processes and tune around known legitimate jobs, health checks, and application supervisors.
Likely telemetry
- Container runtime process execution events
- Process command line and parent-child process relationships inside containers
- Container image, container ID, pod/workload, and namespace or deployment metadata where applicable
- File execution or script path telemetry from within containers
- Container stdout/stderr and application logs that show repeated script or binary execution
Detection direction
- Baseline normal recurring processes per container image and workload, then alert on unfamiliar scripts or binaries launched repeatedly by cron or sleep loops.
- Correlate process names and command lines with container image metadata and deployment intent to reduce false positives from legitimate schedulers or application supervisors.
- Tune for repetition and unfamiliarity rather than the mere presence of cron or sleep, because both can appear in benign containerized workloads.
- Validate that short-lived containers and ephemeral processes are not missed by collection latency or sampling.
- Investigate with workload context: image origin, deployment owner, recent image changes, and whether the repeated executable is expected for that service.
Mitigation priorities
- Establish approved container image and workload baselines so recurring processes can be compared against intended behavior.
- Limit unnecessary schedulers and long-running shell loops inside containers when they are not part of the application design.
- Ensure container runtime and orchestration logging are enabled before relying on this analytic for SOC coverage.
- Use change control and image review to verify scripts and binaries added to container images.
- Prepare incident response procedures for isolating or redeploying suspicious containers while preserving relevant process and image evidence.
Analyst notes and limits
This is a detection analytic for the Containers platform. The only supplied behavior is unusual cron or sleep loop usage inside containers repeatedly executing unfamiliar scripts or binaries. There are no supplied relationships, tactics, mitigations, data components, or detailed detection logic, so implementation must be tailored to the local container environment.
Official detection logic was not provided, and no relationship context was supplied. This take cannot infer adversary intent, active exploitation, impact, attribution, or guaranteed detection coverage. Local workload baselines and telemetry validation are required.
Analytic 0261
Detects unusual use of `cron` or `sleep` loops inside containers executing unfamiliar scripts or binaries repeatedly.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 99cc8dc88059… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
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mitre-attack AN0261Open source URL
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