// question

A suspicious elevated shell on Linux changed a file’s permissions for a user to include the SetUID bit. What was the exact command used to set that flag?

Reference KQL answer and model-by-model comparison.

9be9b827-ff47-4e1b-bef8-217db6fb7283
question id
1/23
models correct
1
valid answer
4%
success rate
// reference answer

Human-validated correct answer for this question.

chmod u+xs /tmp/evilBinary
// model comparison
ModelAnswerKQL queryStatusTriesTimeCost
gemini-2.5-flash-preview-04-17
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0205
gpt-35-turbo
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0114
gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.2293
gpt-4.1
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0809
gpt-4.1-finetuned
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0442
gpt-4.1-mini
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0075
gpt-4.1-nano
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0013
gpt-4o
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0496
gpt-5-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.2756
gpt-5-mini-high
chmod u+xs /tmp/evilBinary
let linuxDevices = DeviceInfo
| where tostring(OSPlatform) != '' and (tolower(tostring(OSPlatform)) contains "linux" or tolower(tostring(OSDistribution)) contains "linux")
| distinct DeviceId;

union
(
    DeviceEvents
    | project TimeGenerated, DeviceId, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath, InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, InitiatingProcessAccountName, Command = tostring(InitiatingProcessCommandLine), InitiatingProcessFileName, Additional = tostring(AdditionalFields)
),
(
    DeviceFileEvents
    | project TimeGenerated, DeviceId, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath, InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, InitiatingProcessAccountName, Command = tostring(InitiatingProcessCommandLine), InitiatingProcessFileName, Additional = tostring(AdditionalFields)
),
(
    DeviceProcessEvents
    | project TimeGenerated, DeviceId, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath, InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, InitiatingProcessAccountName, Command = tostring(coalesce(InitiatingProcessCommandLine, ProcessCommandLine)), InitiatingProcessFileName, Additional = tostring(AdditionalFields)
)
| where DeviceId in (linuxDevices)
// Look for known indicators of SetUID being set
| where Command has_any ("chmod","+s","u+s","475","setuid","suid","setfacl","setfattr","chown")
      or Additional has_any ("suid","+s","u+s","475","chmod","setuid")
| extend ExactCommand = extract(@"(?i)(chmod\s+[^;|&]*)", 1, Command)
| extend ExactCommand = iff(isnotempty(ExactCommand), ExactCommand, extract(@"(?i)(setfacl\s+[^;|&]*)", 1, Command))
| extend ExactCommand = iff(isnotempty(ExactCommand), ExactCommand, extract(@"(?i)(setfattr\s+[^;|&]*)", 1, Command))
| extend ExactCommand = iff(isnotempty(ExactCommand), ExactCommand, extract(@"(?i)(chown\s+[^;|&]*)", 1, Command))
| extend FullPath = strcat(tostring(FolderPath), "/", tostring(FileName))
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, DeviceId, AccountDomain = InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, AccountName = InitiatingProcessAccountName, InitiatingProcessFileName, FullPath, ExactCommand, Command, ActionType, Additional
| where isnotempty(ExactCommand) or Additional has_any ("suid","+s","u+s","475")
| summarize LatestTime = max(TimeGenerated), DeviceName = any(DeviceName), AccountDomain = any(AccountDomain), AccountName = any(AccountName), InitiatingProcessFileName = any(InitiatingProcessFileName), Command = any(Command), ExactCommand = any(ExactCommand), ActionType = any(ActionType), Additional = any(Additional) by DeviceId, FullPath
| order by LatestTime desc
| project LatestTime, DeviceName, FullPath, ExactCommand, Command, AccountDomain, AccountName, InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType, Additional
| take 100
pass246.66s0.0153
gpt-5-mini-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0187
gpt-5-mini-medium
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0166
gpt-5-nano-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0092
gpt-5-nano-medium
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0083
grok-3-beta
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.3540
grok-3-mini-beta
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0070
o1-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.7214
o1-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.8089
o3-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0924
o3-mini-high
chmod +x /root/AtomicRedTeam/atomics/T1059.004/src/AutoSUID.sh
DeviceProcessEvents
| where isnotempty(InitiatingProcessCommandLine)
| where InitiatingProcessCommandLine contains "chmod"
| where InitiatingProcessCommandLine contains "4"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, FolderPath, FileName
| order by TimeGenerated desc
fail572.12s0.0719
o3-mini-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0432
o4-mini-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0511
o4-mini-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0444