Looking for Malware on Linux Systems

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Security

Looking for Malware on Linux Systems

In this lab, we'll be investigating a possible malware infection on an Ubuntu Linux host. We'll be looking for specific data points and will document them in a file on the host. Then we'll export the syslog data to a text file for later analysis.

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Lab Info

Level

Beginner

Last updated

Sep 14, 2025

Duration

30m

Challenge

Document data points provided by your supervisor.
1. Open Gedit to provide a place to save your findings.
2. Run the command sudo top to open the system performance interface.
3. Type the letter P to sort by processor utilization. Document the process using the most processor resources.
4. Type the letter M to sort by memory utilization. Document the process using the most memory resources.
5. Type Ctrl+c to exit top
6. Run the command sudo df -h to list out disk space statistics for the server. Identify the percentage of used disk space for /dev/xvda1 and record it.
7. Run the command sudo w to list active connections to the server. Identify the username of the active connection and record it.
8. Run the command sudo netstat -a and identify the ESTABLISHED connection. Record the remote IP address of the device connecting to the server.
9. From within Gedit, save the document on the Desktop as investigation.txt.
Challenge

Export syslog data to a file.

Run the following command: sudo cat /var/log/syslog > /home/cloud_user/Desktop/syslog.txt

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