This document provides an introduction to OS Query, an open source tool for querying information about operating systems. It outlines lessons that will cover OS Query basics, deploying OS Query, and running basic commands. Examples of queries are provided to find running processes, network connections, kernel modules, and more. Use cases are described for how OS Query can be used to detect new listening processes, outbound network activity, deleted process binaries, and loaded kernel modules.

1. INTRO: OS QUERY
A Basic Dive in with OS Query (https://osquery.io)

3. Outline
Lesson 1.
Introduction to OS Query
Lesson 2.
OS Query at a glance
Lesson 3.
Deploying OS query
Lesson 4.
Running some basic commands
Lesson 5.
Kolide (?) maybe for fleet
management.

4. What is osquery?
osquery is an open source tool created by Facebook for
querying various information about the state of your
machines. This includes information like:
• Running processes
• Kernel modules loaded
• Active user accounts
• Active network connections
And much more!
osquery allows you to craft your system queries using SQL
statements, making it easy to use by security engineers that
are already familiar with SQL

5. osquery at a glance
Features
Osquery is a framework we’ve used to create a few products
and tools. Osquery’s modular codebase allows us to take
advantage of existing concepts in new and interesting ways.
We’re releasing several tools as a part of the open source release
and we have more planned. We’re also looking forward to
seeing how the community uses the codebase to create even
more interesting tools.
Interactive query console
The interactive query console, osqueryi, gives you an SQL
interface to try out new queries and explore your operating
system. With the power of SQL and dozens of useful tables
built-in, osqueryi is an invaluable tool when diagnosing a
systems operations problem, troubleshooting a performance
issue, etc.

6. Deploying OSQUERY!
osquery is agent software that must run directly
on your endpoints (e.g., your OSX installation,
Windows System or Linux servers). osquery will
require root or system privileges to get a lot of
detailed system information, although it is
possible to glean some information when not ran
as 'root'. For more information, see the official
deployment guide.
• Install on Mac
• Install on Linux
• Install on Windows

7. Check OS Versions
Basic Commands

8. Basic 1: Shell history
Running this query periodically and diffing against older results can yield whether or not a new kernel module has
loaded: kernel modules can be checked against a whitelist/blacklist and any changes can be scrutinized for rootkits.
#Shell History
Query: select * from shell_history;
#user Shell
Query: select * from users;

9. Basic 2: Networking
Basic Networking Commands for OSQuery.
#Print NIC
Query: select * from interface_addresses;
#DNS Resolver
Query: select * from dns_resolvers;
#Check Default Routing
Query: select * from routes;
#ARP Cache
Query: select * from arp_cache;
#/etc/hosts

10. Basic 2: Networking
Basic Networking Commands for OSQuery.
#Listening Ports
Query: Query: select * from listening_ports;
#Process Listening on UDP port
Query: select protocol,local_port,b.name,b.path from
process_open_sockets as a join
processes as b where a.pid=b.pid and a.protocol=17;

11. Basic 3: Process
#Process running with Root Privileges
Query: select name,path,uid,on_disk from processes where
on_disk=0;
#List all Possible Outcome
Query: select * from processes;

12. Use case 1: Finding new processes
listening on network ports
Frequently, malware will listen on port to provide command and control (C&C) or direct shell access for an attacker.
Running this query periodically and diffing with the last ‘known good’ results will provide the security team with any
new processes that are listening for network connections, and allow the team to investigate the nature of that
process
SELECT DISTINCT process.name, listening.port, listening.address,
process.pid FROM processes AS process JOIN listening_ports AS
listening ON process.pid = listening.pid;

13. Use case 2: Finding suspicious outbound
network activity
On endpoints with well-defined behavior, the security team can use osquery to find any processes that do not fit
within whitelisted network behavior, e.g. a process scp’ing traffic externally when it should only perform HTTP(s)
connections outbound
example: looks for processes with IP traffic to ports not in (80, 443)
select s.pid, p.name, local_address, remote_address, family, protocol,
local_port, remote_port from process_open_sockets s join processes
p on s.pid = p.pid where remote_port not in (80, 443) and family = 2;

14. Use case 3: Finding processes that are
running whose binary has been deleted
from the disk
Frequently, attackers will leave a malicious process running but delete the original binary on disk. This query returns
any process whose original binary has been deleted or modified (which could be an indicator of a suspicious
process)
SELECT name, path, pid FROM processes WHERE on_disk = 0;

15. Use case 4:Finding new kernel modules
that have loaded
Running this query periodically and diffing against older results can yield whether or not a new kernel module has
loaded: kernel modules can be checked against a whitelist/blacklist and any changes can be scrutinized for rootkits.
select name from kernel_modules;

16. Credit:
Attack Defense

17. Say Hello:
◦ OS Query : Schema
◦ Rapid 7: Blog post
◦ Attack Defense : Online Labs
References:
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Mail : animeshroy@live.com