analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits is a skill for Claude Code from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills. It costs 65 tokens per session (1,475 once invoked), scanned B, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for detecting rootkits, which are malware that hides inside the Linux kernel, the core part of the operating system.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to inspect Linux memory dumps, compare system views, scan live systems, and look for hooked system calls, hidden modules, and altered kernel structures.
Why use it?
Kernel-level malware can hide processes, files, connections, or modules from ordinary tools, so memory and cross-checking are needed to find inconsistencies.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the cybersecurity-skills plugin — 56 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to inspect Linux memory dumps, compare system views, scan live systems, and look for hooked system calls, hidden modules, and altered kernel structures.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits
About the project

Anthropic Cybersecurity Skills is a library of structured cybersecurity procedures for AI agents, covering security domains and mappings to established security frameworks. It is for authorized security analysis, penetration testing, incident response, research, defense, and education across compatible AI platforms. The catalogue entries package parts of this library as agent skills, instructions, or a plugin.

mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills · 32,386 stars · on GitHub · mahipal.engineer

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 mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cybersecurity-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 56 skills.

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 analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits/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 analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 65 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,475 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 6 Apr 2026
  • Snyk warn 6 Apr 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to medium

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • medium Privilege Escalation · line 74
    Commands invoke sudo or root privileges. Verify this elevated access is necessary and justified.
    Fix: Avoid sudo/root unless strictly required. Prefer least-privilege patterns. If elevation is needed, document the justification and scope.
How audits are shown
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 $0.00065 $0.01475
Opus 5 $0.00032 $0.00737
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00295
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00147

Measured 9d ago against content hash 8f13fb407ddc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 9d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/agent.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.

Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

$ sudo python3 rootkit_analyzer.py --memory /evidence/linux-mem.lime --profile Ubuntu2204
Origin

Copies of this mod

7 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

skills/analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits/SKILL.md · 140 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 140 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Analyzing Linux Kernel Rootkits

Overview

Linux kernel rootkits operate at ring 0, modifying kernel data structures to hide processes, files, network connections, and kernel modules from userspace tools. Detection requires either memory forensics (analyzing physical memory dumps with Volatility3) or cross-view analysis (comparing /proc, /sys, and kernel data structures for inconsistencies). This skill covers using Volatility3 Linux plugins to detect syscall table hooks, hidden kernel modules, and modified function pointers, supplemented by live system scanning with rkhunter and chkrootkit.

When to Use

  • When investigating security incidents that require analyzing linux kernel rootkits
  • When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
  • When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
  • When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

  • Volatility3 installed (pip install volatility3)
  • Linux memory dump (acquired via LiME, AVML, or /proc/kcore)
  • Volatility3 Linux symbol table (ISF) matching the target kernel version
  • rkhunter and chkrootkit for live system scanning
  • Reference known-good kernel image for comparison

Steps

Step 1: Acquire Memory Dump

Capture Linux physical memory using LiME kernel module or AVML for cloud instances.

Step 2: Analyze with Volatility3

Run linux.check_syscall, linux.lsmod, linux.hidden_modules, and linux.check_idt plugins to detect rootkit artifacts.

Step 3: Cross-View Analysis

Compare module lists from /proc/modules, lsmod, and /sys/module to identify modules hidden from one view but present in another.

Step 4: Live System Scanning

Run rkhunter and chkrootkit to detect known rootkit signatures, suspicious files, and modified system binaries.

Expected Output

JSON report containing detected syscall hooks, hidden kernel modules, modified IDT entries, suspicious /proc discrepancies, and rkhunter findings.

Example Output

Read the full file on GitHub · 140 lines

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. 9d ago First seen · 140 lines · 65 tokens per session scan B 8f13fb407ddc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits is a skill published in the GitHub repository mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills (32,386 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 65 tokens to every session and 1,475 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (asks for root). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

Detect kernel-level rootkits in Linux memory dumps using Volatility3 linux plugins (checksyscall, lsmod, hiddenmodules), rkhunter system scanning, and /proc vs /sys discrepancy analysis to identify hooked syscalls, hidden kernel modules, and tampered system structures.

xalgorix/xalgorix · 65 tokens

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

A guide for checking Linux memory and system data for kernel rootkits, which are malicious programs that hide inside the operating system core. It compares different system views and uses forensic and scanning tools.

killvxk/cybersecurity-skills-zh · 77 tokens

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

Detect kernel-level rootkits in Linux memory dumps using Volatility3 linux plugins (checksyscall, lsmod, hiddenmodules), rkhunter system scanning, and /proc vs /sys discrepancy analysis to identify hooked syscalls, hidden kernel modules, and tampered system structures.

26zl/cybersec-toolkit · 65 tokens

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

Detect kernel-level rootkits in Linux memory dumps using Volatility3 linux plugins (checksyscall, lsmod, hiddenmodules), rkhunter system scanning, and /proc vs /sys discrepancy analysis to identify hooked syscalls, hidden kernel modules, and tampered system structures.

plurigrid/asi · 65 tokens

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

Detect kernel-level rootkits in Linux memory dumps using Volatility3 linux plugins (checksyscall, lsmod, hiddenmodules), rkhunter system scanning, and /proc vs /sys discrepancy analysis to identify hooked syscalls, hidden kernel modules, and tampered system structures.

autohandai/community-skills · 65 tokens

analyzing-linux-kernel-rootkits

Detect kernel-level rootkits in Linux memory dumps using Volatility3 linux plugins (checksyscall, lsmod, hiddenmodules), rkhunter system scanning, and /proc vs /sys discrepancy analysis to identify hooked syscalls, hidden kernel modules, and tampered system structures.

pinkpixel-dev/skills-collection-1 · 65 tokens