Monitoring Linux system calls with Falco
Rules and Logs
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Create your own rules to detect threats by monitoring system calls.
Strace [1] is a valuable tool for monitoring and troubleshooting system calls. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to understand raw system calls emitted by strace. For instance, the command shown in Listing 1 reveals lots of cryptic information.
Falco [2] is an alternative tool that offers a more intuitive approach for monitoring and detecting system events. Falco is maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNFC) [3] and is designed to operate in distributed, containerized environments. However, you can also use Falco on a single Linux system.
Overview of Linux System Calls
In Linux, userspace programs make requests to the kernel via the glibc library [4]. Otherwise known as the GNU C library, glibc is made up of wrapper functions that invoke or make system calls – on behalf of userspace programs – to the Linux kernel. Other libraries, such as the musl library [5], also exist (see the box entitled "musl and glibc"), but glibc is the default library for most Linux distributions.
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