Sigma rule: Potential OGNL Injection Exploitation In JVM Based Application

A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-b8a6e8c8d946, updated 2023-02-11T00:00:00.000Z.

Rule

Title
Potential OGNL Injection Exploitation In JVM Based Application
Status
test
Level
high
Author
Moti Harmats
Date
2023-02-11
File
rules/application/jvm/java_ognl_injection_exploitation_attempt.yml
Commit
ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects potential OGNL Injection exploitation, which may lead to RCE.
OGNL is an expression language that is supported in many JVM based systems.
OGNL Injection is the reason for some high profile RCE's such as Apache Struts (CVE-2017-5638) and Confluence (CVE-2022-26134)

Log source

product
jvm
category
application
definition
Requirements: application error logs must be collected (with LOG_LEVEL=ERROR and above)

Detection

keywords:
    - 'org.apache.commons.ognl.OgnlException'
    - 'ExpressionSyntaxException'
condition: keywords

False positives (as the rule lists them)

  • Application bugs

Tags

  • attack.initial-access
  • attack.t1190
  • cve.2017-5638
  • cve.2022-26134

CVEs this rule names

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

References

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/application/jvm/java_ognl_injection_exploitation_attempt.yml

Sources and licences

  • SigmaHQ

    "Potential OGNL Injection Exploitation In JVM Based Application" by Moti Harmats (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/application/jvm/java_ognl_injection_exploitation_attempt.yml.
    Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License

    Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1

Cite this page

Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: Potential OGNL Injection Exploitation In JVM Based Application",
entity page, dataset version ref-b8a6e8c8d946, updated 2023-02-11T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/4d0af518-828e-4a04-a751-a7d03f3046ad (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule 4d0af518-828e-4a04-a751-a7d03f3046ad, commit ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84.

Pages change. The dataset version identifies the data, but no archive of old versions is kept, so this citation cannot be replayed later.