legitimate database administrators performing user management tasks, orm frameworks querying information_schema for schema validation, password reset functionality, and ci/cd pipelines running database migrations.

Techniques

T1555

Sample rules

MCP Postgres Suspicious Query

source: splunk
technicques:
- T1555

Description

This detection identifies potentially malicious SQL queries executed through MCP PostgreSQL server connections, monitoring for privilege escalation attempts, credential theft, and schema reconnaissance. These patterns are commonly observed in SQL injection attacks, compromised application credentials, and insider threat scenarios targeting database assets.

Detection logic

`mcp_server` method=query direction=inbound

| eval dest=host

| eval query_lower=lower('params.query')

| eval suspicious_query='params.query'

| eval is_priv_escalation=if(like(query_lower, "%update%users%role%admin%") OR like(query_lower, "%grant%admin%") OR like(query_lower, "%grant%superuser%"), 1, 0)

| eval is_credential_theft=if(like(query_lower, "%password%") OR like(query_lower, "%credential%") OR like(query_lower, "%api_key%") OR like(query_lower, "%secret%"), 1, 0)

| eval is_recon=if(like(query_lower, "%information_schema%") OR like(query_lower, "%pg_catalog%") OR like(query_lower, "%pg_tables%") OR like(query_lower, "%pg_user%"), 1, 0)

| where is_priv_escalation=1 OR is_credential_theft=1 OR is_recon=1

| eval attack_type=case(
    is_priv_escalation=1, "Privilege Escalation",
    is_credential_theft=1, "Credential Theft",
    is_recon=1, "Schema Reconnaissance",
    1=1, "Unknown")

| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(suspicious_query) as suspicious_queries values(attack_type) as attack_types dc(attack_type) as attack_diversity by dest

| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 

| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`

| table dest firstTime lastTime count suspicious_queries attack_types attack_diversity

| `mcp_postgres_suspicious_query_filter`