hunting-persistence-on-linux

hunting-persistence-on-linux is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack. It costs 67 tokens per session (689 once invoked), scanned C, original, Apache-2.0.

A security-hunting guide for finding Linux persistence, meaning changes that make an attacker or program start again automatically. It checks cron jobs, systemd services, shell startup files, SSH authorized keys, and autostart locations.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to scan collected persistence files, group findings by mechanism, flag suspicious commands and paths, and compare results with a known-good baseline.
Why use it?
It helps identify unauthorized startup entries on a suspected compromised Linux machine while inspecting collected files without running them.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to scan collected persistence files, group findings by mechanism, flag suspicious commands and paths, and compare results with a known-good baseline.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack --skill hunting-persistence-on-linux
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for hunting-persistence-on-linux

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for hunting-persistence-on-linux

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack/hunting-persistence-on-linux.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 67 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 689 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 3 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00067 $0.00689
Opus 5 $0.00034 $0.00345
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00138
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00069

Measured 6d ago against content hash 2e7227c5c939, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

hunting-persistence-on-linux scanned grade C with 3 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 6d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/analyst.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Downloads and executes remote codemediumSupply chain

curl | sh runs whatever the server returns today, which is not necessarily what it returned when this was reviewed.

(`curl|wget ... | sh`, `base64 -d | bash`, reverse-shell one-liners, `nc -e`), suspicious paths

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Encoded or obfuscated payloadmediumSupply chain

base64 or hex that is decoded and executed hides what actually runs from anyone reading the file.

(`curl|wget ... | sh`, `base64 -d | bash`, reverse-shell one-liners, `nc -e`), suspicious paths

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

(`curl|wget ... | sh`, `base64 -d | bash`, reverse-shell one-liners, `nc -e`), suspicious paths
skills/hunting-persistence-on-linux/SKILL.md · 89 lines

What it actually says

Hunting Persistence on Linux

When to Use

  • You have collected Linux persistence-relevant files (cron entries, systemd units, shell rc files, authorized_keys, autostart) and want to flag suspicious entries.
  • You are triaging a suspected compromised Linux host's persistence surface.

Do not use this on a live root shell as a substitute for proper IR collection — feed it collected copies. It reads files statically and executes nothing.

Prerequisites

  • Collected persistence artifacts (cron files, unit files, rc files, authorized_keys).

Safety & Handling

  • Read files statically; treat their contents as untrusted.

Workflow

Step 1: Scan persistence files

python scripts/analyst.py scan /path/to/collected

Recursively scans known persistence locations and flags entries containing download/exec patterns (curl|wget ... | sh, base64 -d | bash, reverse-shell one-liners, nc -e), suspicious paths (/tmp, /dev/shm), and unexpected authorized_keys additions.

Step 2: Categorize by mechanism

Group findings by mechanism: cron, systemd, rc/profile, SSH keys, autostart.

Step 3: Confirm

Compare against a known-good baseline of expected services/keys; investigate deviations.

Step 4: Document

Record each persistence entry, its mechanism, and the suspicious indicator.

Validation

  • Findings are grouped by persistence mechanism.
  • Reverse-shell/download-exec one-liners are flagged with the matched pattern.
  • authorized_keys additions are surfaced for review.

Pitfalls

  • Legitimate admin cron/systemd entries — baseline before alerting.
  • Persistence in less-common spots (udev, PAM, LD_PRELOAD) not covered by basic scans.
  • Encoded/obfuscated payloads hiding the true command.

References

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 6d ago First seen · 89 lines · 67 tokens per session scan C 2e7227c5c939

Subscribe to this mod's changes

hunting-persistence-on-linux is a skill published in the GitHub repository meltedinhex/analyst-ai-pack (22 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 67 tokens to every session and 689 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 3 findings (downloads and executes remote code, encoded or obfuscated payload, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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