CHAIN-180 — Backup agent version stale on prod VMs

Summary

Severity: Medium · Likelihood: Medium · Logic: ALL

Why this chain matters

Azure Backup agent (MARS / MABS) on prod VMs is running a version from 18 months ago. A published vulnerability in the agent itself lets an attacker escalate privilege on the host during backup operations.

Component rules

This chain fires when its trigger conditions are met by the following rules. Click any rule to see its detection logic and compliance mappings.

Rule ID	Role
zt_bak_005	Trigger
zt_wl_008	Trigger

Attack walkthrough

Step 1 — Exploit backup agent vulnerability.

Actor: Attacker
MITRE ATT&CK: T1068
Enabled by: zt_bak_005

Attacker gain: Privilege escalation to SYSTEM on the VM.

Step 2 — Read any file on the host; access MI tokens.

Actor: Attacker
MITRE ATT&CK: T1552.005
Enabled by: zt_wl_008

Attacker gain: Host + cloud compromise.

Blast radius

Initial access	Backup agent CVE.
Max privilege	Host SYSTEM.
Data at risk	Host filesystem + MI token
Services at risk	Any cloud resource the VM's MI can reach

How the logic works

The chain fires only when every rule above has at least one finding in the current scan. Missing any one rule breaks the chain — so remediating any single step disrupts the attack path.