PUA - TruffleHog Execution

Status: experimental
Severity: medium
Log source: category process_creation, product windows
Author: Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects execution of TruffleHog, a tool used to search for secrets in different platforms like Git, Jira, Slack, SharePoint, etc. that could be used maliciously. While it is a legitimate tool, intended for use in CI pipelines and security assessments, It was observed in the Shai-Hulud malware campaign targeting npm packages to steal sensitive information.

Known false positives

Legitimate use of TruffleHog by security teams or developers.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Credential Access	`T1552.001` Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files
Discovery	`T1083` File and Directory Discovery

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 1: Process creation
Security-Auditing	Event ID 4688: A new process has been created.

Rule body

title: PUA - TruffleHog Execution
id: 44030449-b0df-4c94-aae1-502359ab28ee
related:
    - id: d7a650c4-226c-451e-948f-cc490db506aa
      type: similar
status: experimental
description: |
    Detects execution of TruffleHog, a tool used to search for secrets in different platforms like Git, Jira, Slack, SharePoint, etc. that could be used maliciously.
    While it is a legitimate tool, intended for use in CI pipelines and security assessments,
    It was observed in the Shai-Hulud malware campaign targeting npm packages to steal sensitive information.
references:
    - https://github.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog
    - https://www.getsafety.com/blog-posts/shai-hulud-npm-attack
author: Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
date: 2025-09-24
tags:
    - attack.discovery
    - attack.credential-access
    - attack.t1083
    - attack.t1552.001
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_img:
        Image|endswith: '\trufflehog.exe'
    selection_cli_platform:
        CommandLine|contains:
            - ' docker --image '
            - ' Git '
            - ' GitHub '
            - ' Jira '
            - ' Slack '
            - ' Confluence '
            - ' SharePoint '
            - ' s3 '
            - ' gcs '
    selection_cli_verified:
        CommandLine|contains: ' --results=verified'
    condition: selection_img or all of selection_cli_*
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate use of TruffleHog by security teams or developers.
level: medium
regression_tests_path: regression_data/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_pua_trufflehog/info.yml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection_img or all of selection_cli_*

Stage 1: `selection_img`

selection_img:
    Image|endswith: '\trufflehog.exe'

Stage 2: `selection_cli_platform`

selection_cli_platform:
    CommandLine|contains:
        - ' docker --image '
        - ' Git '
        - ' GitHub '
        - ' Jira '
        - ' Slack '
        - ' Confluence '
        - ' SharePoint '
        - ' s3 '
        - ' gcs '

Stage 3: `selection_cli_verified`

selection_cli_verified:
    CommandLine|contains: ' --results=verified'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`CommandLine`	match	`--results=verified` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `Confluence` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `Git` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `GitHub` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `Jira` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `SharePoint` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `Slack` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `docker --image` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `gcs` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `s3` corpus 2 (sigma 2)	`field:"CommandLine" kind:match`
`Image`	ends_with	`\trufflehog.exe`	`field:"Image" kind:ends_with value:"\trufflehog.exe"`