Detection: Cisco Isovalent - Late Process Execution

Updated Date: 2026-01-05 ID: 7f4b9b8e-5d6a-4a21-9e3f-0f1e8f2d1c3a Author: Bhavin Patel, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

Detects process executions that occur well after a container has initialized, which can indicate suspicious activity (e.g., interactive shells, injected binaries, or post-compromise tooling). The analytic compares the process start time to the container start time and flags processes launched more than 5 minutes (300 seconds) after initialization.

Search

 1`cisco_isovalent_process_exec` process_name="sh"
 2
 3| rename process_exec.process.start_time as ProcessStartTime 
 4
 5| rename process_exec.process.pod.container.start_time as ContainerStartTime 
 6
 7| eval ProcessStartTime=strptime(ProcessStartTime, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%3Q")
 8
 9| eval ContainerStartTime=strptime(ContainerStartTime, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%9Q")
10
11| eval ContainerTime5min=relative_time(ContainerStartTime, "+5m")
12
13| where ProcessStartTime > ContainerTime5min
14
15| table node_name cluster_name, pod_name, container_id, process_name, process_exec, process, ProcessStartTime, ContainerTime5min 
16| `security_content_ctime(ProcessStartTime)`
17
18| `security_content_ctime(ContainerTime5min)`
19
20| `cisco_isovalent___late_process_execution_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Cisco Isovalent Process Exec	Other	`'cisco:isovalent:processExec'`	`'not_applicable'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
cisco_isovalent_process_exec	`sourcetype=cisco:isovalent:processExec`
cisco_isovalent___late_process_execution_filter	`search *`

cisco_isovalent___late_process_execution_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1543	Create or Modify System Process	Persistence

Exploitation

Installation

DE.AE

CIS 10

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

The detection is based on process execution data generated by Cisco Isovalent Runtime Security. Ensure that Isovalent Runtime Security is deployed and configured in your Kubernetes environment to emit process_exec events. Configure the Cisco Security Cloud TA to collect these logs via HTTP Event Collector (HEC) and normalize them into the Splunk Common Information Model. This integration ensures that all relevant pod, container, and process activity is captured for monitoring and detection of suspicious behavior.

Known False Positives

This activity may be triggered by legitimate administrative scripts, container images, or third-party operators that use cron for scheduled tasks, so please investigate the alert in context to rule out benign operations.

Associated Analytic Story

Cisco Isovalent Suspicious Activity

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Late process execution [$process_name$] detected in pod [$pod_name$]

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
pod_name	system	45	process_name

References

https://docs.isovalent.com/user-guide/sec-ops-visibility/process-execution/index.html

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`not_applicable`	`cisco:isovalent:processExec`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`not_applicable`	`cisco:isovalent:processExec`

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 1