Individual skill
hunting-for-webshell-activity
Hunt for web shell deployments on internet-facing servers by analyzing file creation in web directories, suspicious process spawning from web servers, and anomalous HTTP patterns.
internal/tools/skills/data/threat-hunting/hunting-for-webshell-activity/SKILL.md
Source commit d42f381ad34843e71a42658e5c57290c713e85af
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- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- No
- Repository scan complete
- No
- Skill scan complete
- No
- Observed behavior
- Not checked yet
- Last checked
- Nov 7, 2026
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Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 1,310
- Repository last updated
- Nov 7, 2026
- License
- Apache-2.0
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- cybersecurity Repository topic
- security Repository topic
- bug-bounty Repository topic
- automation Repository topic
- autonomous-pentesting Repository topic
- ai-agent Repository topic
- ai-security Repository topic
- ethical-hacking Repository topic
- golang Repository topic
- penetration-testing Repository topic
- threat-hunting Declared skill tag
- mitre-attack Declared skill tag
- webshell Declared skill tag
- persistence Declared skill tag
- web-server Declared skill tag
- t1505 Declared skill tag
- proactive-detection Declared skill tag
- operations Derived category
- security Derived category
Files and excerpt
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# Hunting For Webshell Activity
## When to Use
- When proactively hunting for indicators of hunting for webshell activity in the environment
- After threat intelligence indicates active campaigns using these techniques
- During incident response to scope compromise related to these techniques
- When EDR or SIEM alerts trigger on related indicators
- During periodic security assessments and purple team exercises
## Detection Gaps & Validation
- **File-create hunting misses a lot:** shells appended to existing legit `.aspx`/`.php`, stored in a database, loaded as an in-memory IIS module (T1505.004), or served via handler mapping under a benign extension. Hash/signature scans miss obfuscated one-liners like `<?php @eval($_POST['x']);?>`.
- **Process lineage is the durable signal:** w3wp.exe / httpd / tomcat / php-cgi spawning cmd.exe/powershell/whoami (EID 1, ParentImage = web server) catches even unknown shells; EID 11 FileCreate in webroot by the web-server process (not a deploy pipeline) is high-signal.