Detection rules › Sigma
Vim GTFOBin Abuse - Linux
Detects the use of "vim" and it's siblings commands to execute a shell or proxy commands. Such behavior may be associated with privilege escalation, unauthorized command execution, or to break out from restricted environments.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Execution | T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter |
| Discovery | T1083 File and Directory Discovery |
Event coverage
| Provider | Event |
|---|---|
| Sysmon-for-Linux | Event ID 1 |
Rule body yaml
title: Vim GTFOBin Abuse - Linux
id: 7ab8f73a-fcff-428b-84aa-6a5ff7877dea
status: test
description: |
Detects the use of "vim" and it's siblings commands to execute a shell or proxy commands.
Such behavior may be associated with privilege escalation, unauthorized command execution, or to break out from restricted environments.
references:
- https://gtfobins.github.io/gtfobins/vi/
- https://gtfobins.github.io/gtfobins/vim/
- https://gtfobins.github.io/gtfobins/rvim/
- https://gtfobins.github.io/gtfobins/vimdiff/
author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), Luc Génaux
date: 2022-12-28
modified: 2026-06-05
tags:
- attack.execution
- attack.discovery
- attack.t1059
- attack.t1083
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: linux
detection:
selection_img:
Image|endswith:
- '/rvim'
- '/vi'
- '/vim'
- '/vimdiff'
CommandLine|contains:
- ' --cmd '
- ' -c'
selection_cli:
CommandLine|contains:
- ':!/'
- ':!$'
- ':!..'
- ':lua '
- ':py '
- ':shell'
- '/bin/bash'
- '/bin/dash'
- '/bin/fish'
- '/bin/sh'
- '/bin/csh'
- '/bin/ksh'
- '/bin/zsh'
- '/bin/tmux'
condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
- Unknown
level: high
Stages and Predicates
Stage 0: condition
all of selection_*Stage 1: selection_img
selection_img:
Image|endswith:
- '/rvim'
- '/vi'
- '/vim'
- '/vimdiff'
CommandLine|contains:
- ' --cmd '
- ' -c'
Stage 2: selection_cli
selection_cli:
CommandLine|contains:
- ':!/'
- ':!$'
- ':!..'
- ':lua '
- ':py '
- ':shell'
- '/bin/bash'
- '/bin/dash'
- '/bin/fish'
- '/bin/sh'
- '/bin/csh'
- '/bin/ksh'
- '/bin/zsh'
- '/bin/tmux'
Indicators
Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.
| Field | Kind | Values |
|---|---|---|
CommandLine | match |
|
Image | ends_with |
|