// question

Which full interactive shell command, as recorded in the Linux process logs, repeatedly echoed a distinctive marker message to the terminal?

Reference KQL answer and model-by-model comparison.

b04ed73c-7d43-4dc8-b563-a2fc595cba1a
question id
2/23
models correct
1
valid answer
9%
success rate
// reference answer

Human-validated correct answer for this question.

for i in $(seq 1 5); do echo "$i, Atomic Red Team was here!"; sleep 1; done
// model comparison
ModelAnswerKQL queryStatusTriesTimeCost
gemini-2.5-flash-preview-04-17
Atomic
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains "echo"
// Add a filter here for the distinctive marker message, e.g. | where ProcessCommandLine contains "<distinctive_marker_message>"
| summarize CommandCount = count() by DeviceId, DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine
| where CommandCount > 1
| order by CommandCount desc
fail113.16s0.0078
gpt-35-turbo
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0108
gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.2298
gpt-4.1
bash -c 'cp $HISTFILE $HISTFILE.OLD; if ((${#HISTFILE[@]})); then echo $HISTFILE; fi; echo "" > $HISTFILE; if [ $(wc -c <$HISTFILE) -gt 1 ]; then echo "$HISTFILE is larger than 1k"; fi; ls -la $HISTFILE ; cat $HISTFILE; history -c ; if [ $(history |wc -l) -eq 1 ]; then echo "History cache cleared"; fi'
DeviceProcessEvents
| where FileName in~ ("bash", "sh", "zsh", "ksh")
| where ProcessCommandLine has "echo"
| extend marker=extract("echo ([\"']?[^\"' ]+[\"']?)", 1, ProcessCommandLine)
| where isnotempty(marker)
| summarize Count = count(), FirstSeen=min(TimeGenerated), LastSeen=max(TimeGenerated), Devices=make_set(DeviceName) by ProcessCommandLine, marker
| where Count > 1
| order by Count desc, LastSeen desc
| project FirstSeen, LastSeen, Devices, ProcessCommandLine, marker, Count
fail18.64s0.0208
gpt-4.1-finetuned
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0359
gpt-4.1-mini
sh -c 'for i in $(seq 1 5); do echo "$i, Atomic Red Team was here!"; sleep 1; done'
DeviceProcessEvents
| where isnotempty(ProcessCommandLine)
| where ProcessCommandLine matches regex @"\b(bash|sh|zsh)\b" 
| where ProcessCommandLine matches regex @"\becho\b"
| summarize EchoCount = count() by ProcessCommandLine
| where EchoCount > 1
| order by EchoCount desc
| project ProcessCommandLine, EchoCount
pass229.60s0.0087
gpt-4.1-nano
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0017
gpt-4o
sh -c 'for i in $(seq 1 5); do echo "$i, Atomic Red Team was here!"; sleep 1; done'
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains "echo"
| extend EchoedMessage = extract(@"echo\s+(.*)", 1, ProcessCommandLine)
| summarize Count = count() by ProcessCommandLine, EchoedMessage
| where Count > 1
pass230.60s0.0573
gpt-5-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.2767
gpt-5-mini-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0151
gpt-5-mini-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0142
gpt-5-mini-medium
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0122
gpt-5-nano-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0075
gpt-5-nano-medium
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0104
grok-3-beta
sh -c 'ENCODED=$(echo "Hello from Atomic Red Team test T1140!" | base64); printf $ENCODED | base64 -d; echo $ENCODED | base64 -d; echo $(echo $ENCODED) | base64 -d; echo $ENCODED > /tmp/T1140.encoded && base64 -d /tmp/T1140.encoded; echo $ENCODED > /tmp/T1140.encoded && base64 -d < /tmp/T1140.encoded; echo $ENCODED > /tmp/T1140.encoded && cat /tmp/T1140.encoded | base64 -d; echo $ENCODED > /tmp/T1140.encoded && cat < /tmp/T1140.encoded | base64 -d; bash -c "{echo,\"$(echo $ENCODED)\"}|{base64,-d}"'
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine contains "echo"
| summarize CommandCount = count() by ProcessCommandLine
| top 10 by CommandCount desc
| project ProcessCommandLine, CommandCount
fail222.23s0.0450
grok-3-mini-beta
bash -c 'TEST=$(echo $HISTCONTROL); if [ "$HISTCONTROL" != "ignoreboth" ]; then export HISTCONTROL="ignoreboth"; fi; history -c ; ls -la $HISTFILE # " ls -la $HISTFILE"; if [ $(history |wc -l) -eq 1 ]; then echo "ls -la is not in history cache"; fi; if [ "$HISTCONTROL" != "erasedups" ]; then export HISTCONTROL="erasedups"; fi; history -c ; ls -la $HISTFILE; ls -la $HISTFILE; ls -la $HISTFILE; if [ $(history |wc -l) -eq 2 ]; then echo "Their is only one entry for ls -la $HISTFILE"; fi'
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ActionType == 'ProcessCreated'
| where FileName in~ ('bash', 'sh')
| where ProcessCommandLine contains 'echo' and (ProcessCommandLine contains 'while' or ProcessCommandLine contains 'for')
| summarize RepeatedEchoCommands = make_set(ProcessCommandLine) by DeviceId
| project DeviceId, RepeatedEchoCommands
| limit 100  // Limit results for practicality; adjust as needed
fail122.71s0.0019
o1-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.8073
o1-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.7191
o3-high
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.1005
o3-mini-high
art-systemd-timer-marker
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine has "echo" and (ProcessCommandLine has "marker" or ProcessCommandLine has "distinctive")
| summarize Occurrences = count() by ProcessCommandLine
| order by Occurrences desc
fail1251.49s0.0264
o3-mini-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0441
o4-mini-high
bash -c 'mkdir -p ********** for file in /var/spool/mail/*; do if [ "$(basename "$file")" != "copy" ]; then cp -R "$file" /var/spool/mail/copy/; if [ -f "/var/spool/mail/copy/$(basename "$file")" ]; then echo "Modification for Atomic Red Test" >> "/var/spool/mail/copy/$(basename "$file")"; fi; fi; done'
DeviceProcessEvents
| where FileName in~ ("bash", "sh", "zsh")
| where ProcessCommandLine has "echo"
| summarize EchoCount = count() by FullCommand = ProcessCommandLine
| where EchoCount > 1
| sort by EchoCount desc
| project FullCommand, EchoCount
fail1106.58s0.0341
o4-mini-low
no answer
no query generatedfail50.00s0.0357