Overwrite Process Arguments - T1036.011
Definition
Adversaries may modify a process's in-memory arguments to change its name in order to appear as a legitimate or benign process. On Linux, the operating system stores command-line arguments in the process’s stack and passes them to the main()
function as the argv
array. The first element, argv[0]
, typically contains the process name or path - by default, the command used to actually start the process (e.g., cat /etc/passwd
). By default, the Linux /proc
filesystem uses this value to represent the process name. The /proc/<PID>/cmdline
file reflects the contents of this memory, and tools like ps
use it to display process information. Since arguments are stored in user-space memory at launch, this modification can be performed without elevated privileges.
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