User added
Detects local account creation (useradd / adduser / newusers).
What it detects
Detects local account creation (useradd / adduser / newusers). New local users are a common persistence and backdoor-access technique, especially when paired with privileged groups.
MITRE ATT&CK mapping
- T1136.001Create Account: Local Account· Persistence
False positives and triage
Provisioning and configuration-management tooling create accounts routinely. Correlate with the acting user, the time of day, and whether the new account was added to sudo/wheel.
The rule
Declarative YAML read by the detection engine — data, never executed. Confidence 60%. Source: rules/linux/user_added.yaml, licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
id: linux.account.user_added
version: 1.0.0
status: stable
severity: medium
confidence: 0.6
platforms: [linux]
mitre_techniques: [T1136.001]
description: |
Detects local account creation (useradd / adduser / newusers). New local users are a common
persistence and backdoor-access technique, especially when paired with privileged groups.
match:
command_line_contains_any:
- "useradd "
- "adduser "
- "newusers "
false_positive_guidance: |
Provisioning and configuration-management tooling create accounts routinely. Correlate with
the acting user, the time of day, and whether the new account was added to sudo/wheel.
Related detections
Run this rule on your own logs — offline
KIROSEC runs this rule and the rest of the library over Windows, Linux, macOS and cloud audit logs on the analyst's own machine. Every alert links to the events that raised it, and nothing leaves the device.