Work

An Abnormal File Access Detection Model for Containers Based on eBPF Listening

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: With the widespread adoption of container technology, its shared kernel architecture has made abnormal file access behavior a key precursor to container escape and lateral attacks, necessitating precise and efficient runtime detection mechanisms. However, existing monitoring methods typically suffer from issues such as insufficient granularity in data collection, limited path semantic modeling capabilities, and low anomaly detection accuracy. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an eBPF-based method for detecting abnormal file access in containers. A lightweight kernel-level monitoring mechanism is constructed to capture access behavior in real time at the system call level, effectively enhancing both the granularity of data collection and the completeness of context. At the feature modeling layer, a multimodal path semantic representation method is designed, combining risk-layer rules and semantic vectorization strategies to enhance the hierarchical expression of path structures and improve context modeling ability. In the detection layer, an attention-enhanced autoencoder model is introduced, achieving high-precision identification of abnormal access behavior and low false-positive monitoring under unsupervised conditions through a path segment attention mechanism and weighted reconstruction loss function. Experiments in real container environments show that the proposed method achieves a recall rate of 82.0%, a false-positive rate of 0.79%, and a Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.852, significantly outperforming mainstream unsupervised detection methods such as Isolation Forest, One-Class SVM, and Local Outlier Factor. These results verify the advantages of the proposed method in terms of detection accuracy, real-time performance, and system friendliness, providing an efficient and feasible solution for enhancing the detection of unknown attacks in container runtimes.

Source: Mathematics

DOI: 10.3390/math14060991

Authors: Naqin Zhou, Hao Chen, Zeyu Chen, Chao Li, Fan Li

Institutions: Guangzhou University, Harbin Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Network Security and Intrusion Detection

Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China