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Description

This analytic looks for suspicious commandline that modify the iptables firewall setting of a linux machine. This technique was seen in cyclopsblink malware where it modifies the firewall setting of the compromised machine to allow traffic to its tcp port that will be used to communicate with its C2 server.

  • Type: Anomaly
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2023-04-12
  • Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
  • ID: 309d59dc-1e1b-49b2-9800-7cf18d12f7b7

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1562.004 Disable or Modify System Firewall Defense Evasion
T1562 Impair Defenses Defense Evasion
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.AE
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where  Processes.process = "*iptables *" AND Processes.process = "* --dport *" AND Processes.process = "* ACCEPT*" AND Processes.process = "*&>/dev/null*" AND Processes.process = "* tcp *" AND NOT(Processes.parent_process_path IN("/bin/*", "/lib/*", "/usr/bin/*", "/sbin/*")) by Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id Processes.process_guid Processes.dest _time span=10s Processes.user Processes.parent_process_name  Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process_path 
| rex field=Processes.process "--dport (?<port>3269
|636
|989
|994
|995
|8443)" 
| stats values(Processes.process) as processes_exec values(port) as ports values(Processes.process_guid) as guids values(Processes.process_id) as pids dc(port) as port_count count by Processes.process_name Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_id Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process_path 
| where port_count >=3 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `linux_iptables_firewall_modification_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: linux_iptables_firewall_modification_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • Processes.dest
  • Processes.user
  • Processes.parent_process_name
  • Processes.process_name
  • Processes.process
  • Processes.process_id
  • Processes.parent_process_id

How To Implement

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, parent process, and command-line executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you can use the Add-on for Linux Sysmon from Splunkbase.

Known False Positives

administrator may do this commandline for auditing and testing purposes. In this scenario filter is needed.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
25.0 50 50 A commandline $process$ that may modify iptables firewall on $dest$

:information_source: The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

Reference

Test Dataset

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

source | version: 3