Question Analysis
An attacker on a Linux host may try to enumerate installed shells by reading the system file that lists valid shells. Using process or syslog data, determine which command was executed to perform this enumeration.
bf23c7dc-1004-4949-8262-4c1d1ef87702
Question ID
14/16
Models Correct
1
Valid Answer
88%
Success Rate
Reference Answer
Human-validated correct answer for this question
cat /etc/shells
Model Performance Comparison
See how different AI models performed on this question
Model | Answer | KQL Query | Status | Attempts | Time | Cost |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
gemini-2.5-flash-preview-04-17 | No answer provided | No query generated | Correct | 5 | 0.00s | 0.0363 |
gpt-35-turbo | cat | DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains 'cat /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine contains 'less /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine contains 'more /etc/shells' | Incorrect | 1 | 3.47s | 0.0042 |
gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09 | No answer provided | No query generated | Incorrect | 5 | 0.00s | 0.2278 |
gpt-4.1 | cat /etc/shells | DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine has "/etc/shells"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessAccountName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine | Correct | 1 | 7.90s | 0.0115 |
gpt-4.1-finetuned | cat /etc/shells | DeviceProcessEvents
| where AccountDomain != ""
| where AccountName != ""
//Detect direct `/bin/sh /etc/shells` and similar, or indirect `/etc/shells |awk -F: '/bin/{print $1}'` and similar
| where (ProcessCommandLine in~ ("cat /etc/shells", "more /etc/shells", "less /etc/shells", "tail /etc/shells", "head /etc/shells", "awk -F: '/bin/{print $1}' /etc/shells", "/etc/shells |awk -F: '/bin/{print $1}'", "/etc/shells |awk -F:' '{print $1}'", "/bin/{print ", "|awk -F: '/bin/'") and ProcessCommandLine contains "/etc/shells")
or (ProcessCommandLine has "/etc/shells" and InitiatingProcessFileName == "/bin/sh" )
//Raise if OS identified as Linux.
| summarize count() by bin(TimeGenerated, 1h), AccountName, InitiatingProcessAccountSid, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessId, ProcessCommandLine,ProcessId, Type, InitiatingProcessParentFileName
| extend timestamp = bin(TimeGenerated, 1h)
| extend Account_0_Name = AccountName
| extend Account_0_Sid = InitiatingProcessAccountSid
| extend Host_0_HostName = DeviceName
| extend Process_0_ProcessId = ProcessId
| extend Process_0_CommandLine = InitiatingProcessCommandLine
| extend Process_1_ProcessId = InitiatingProcessId
| extend Process_1_ProcessId = ProcessId
| extend Process_1_CommandLine = ProcessCommandLine
| extend Process_0_FileName = InitiatingProcessParentFileName
| extend Type = strcat(Type, "_" , InitiatingProcessParentFileName) | Correct | 2 | 25.41s | 0.0258 |
gpt-4.1-mini | cat /etc/shells | DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains "/etc/shells" or FileName contains "etc/shells"
| project DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine, TimeGenerated
| sort by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 28.28s | 0.0022 |
gpt-4.1-nano | cat /etc/shells | DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ('cat', 'less', 'more', 'head')
| where ProcessCommandLine contains '/etc/shells'
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, ProcessCommandLine | Correct | 2 | 5.52s | 0.0010 |
gpt-4o | cat /etc/shells | let suspicious_file="/etc/shells";
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine has suspicious_file or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has suspicious_file
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceId, DeviceName, AccountName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessCreationTime | Correct | 2 | 28.09s | 0.0289 |
grok-3-beta | cat /etc/shells | DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine has '/etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine has 'cat /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine has 'more /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine has 'less /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine has 'nano /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine has 'vim /etc/shells' or ProcessCommandLine has 'vi /etc/shells'
| join kind=inner (
DeviceInfo
| where OSPlatform has 'Linux' or OSDistribution has 'Linux'
) on DeviceId
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, ProcessCommandLine, AccountName, InitiatingProcessAccountName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine
| order by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 3 | 40.73s | 0.0617 |
grok-3-mini-beta | cat /etc/shells | DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains '/etc/shells'
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine
| order by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 15.66s | 0.0016 |
o1-high | cat | DeviceProcessEvents
| join kind=inner (
DeviceInfo
| where OSPlatform == "Linux"
) on DeviceId
| where ProcessCommandLine has "/etc/shells"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine | Correct | 2 | 73.09s | 0.3824 |
o1-low | cat | DeviceInfo
| where OSPlatform == "Linux"
| join (
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine has "/etc/shells"
) on DeviceId
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessCommandLine
| order by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 30.13s | 0.2281 |
o3-mini-high | cat | union DeviceProcessEvents, DeviceEvents
| where tolower(InitiatingProcessCommandLine) has "/etc/shells"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, ActionType, DeviceId
| sort by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 11.48s | 0.0113 |
o3-mini-low | cat | DeviceProcessEvents
| where InitiatingProcessCommandLine contains "/etc/shells"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, FileName, FolderPath
| sort by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 31.35s | 0.0113 |
o4-mini-high | cat /etc/shells | let ShellProcessEvents = DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine matches regex @"\b(cat|grep|awk|sed|less|more|tail|head)\b.*\/etc\/shells"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName=InitiatingProcessAccountName, CommandLine=ProcessCommandLine;
// If syslog data is available, look for raw slash etc shells reads in logs
let ShellSyslogEvents = Syslog
| where SyslogMessage has "/etc/shells"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName=HostName, AccountName="(unknown)", CommandLine=SyslogMessage;
// Combine both sources for a full view
ShellProcessEvents
| union ShellSyslogEvents
| sort by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 44.35s | 0.0155 |
o4-mini-low | cat /etc/shells | let ShellFilePath = "/etc/shells";
// 1) Find any processes that reference /etc/shells in their command line
let ProcHits = DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains ShellFilePath
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName, CommandLine = ProcessCommandLine;
// 2) Find any file‐access events reading the /etc/shells file
let FileHits = DeviceFileEvents
| where FileName == "shells" and FolderPath endswith "/etc"
| where ActionType has "Read"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, AccountName = InitiatingProcessAccountName, CommandLine = InitiatingProcessCommandLine;
// Combine and sort
union ProcHits, FileHits
| sort by TimeGenerated desc | Correct | 1 | 31.60s | 0.0097 |