"Sysmon", a Windows monitoring tool from Microsoft
stream:smb,stream:ip,stream:tcp,stream:http
"Splunk Stream", which monitors live network traffic
suricata
The Suricata Intrusion Detection System (IDS)
wineventlog and WinRegistry
Windows OS
fgt_traffic and fgt_utm
Fortigate firewalls
Note: because the sampling is random, you may see
different items near the bottom of this list.
Viewing stream:http Events
In the "sourcetype" box,
in the "Top 10 Values" list,
near the bottom,
if it is visible,
click stream:http
Splunk adds
sourcetype="stream:http"
to
the search and finds approximately 252 results,
as shown below.
If there is no stream:http item in
the list, just type it into the query.
Scroll down to examine the most recent event.
Splunk has parsed this event into many fields,
shown in red, including c_ip,
the client IP address,
as shown below.
In Level 1, you found the staging server domain name (used to host the defacement file). Find that server's IP adddress.
Hints:
Search for HTTP GET events containing the target FQDN.
BOTSv1 2.2: Leetspeak Domain (10 pts)
Use a search engine (outside Splunk) to find other domains on the staging server. Search for that IP address. Find a domain with an name in Leetspeak (like "1337sp33k.com").
BOTSv1 2.3: Brute Force Attack (15 pts)
Find the IP address performing a brute force attack against "imreallynotbatman.com".
Hints:
Find the 15,570 HTTP events using the POST method.
Exclude the events from the vulnerability scanner.
Examine the form_data of the remaining 441 events.
To make a useful table, add this to your query:
| table _time, form_data
BOTSv1 2.4: Uploaded Executable File Name (15 pts)
Find the name of the executable file the attacker uploaded to the server.
Hints:
Find the 15,570 HTTP events using the POST method.
Exclude the events from the vulnerability scanner.
Search for common Windows executable filename extensions.
Level 3: Using Sysmon and Stream (20 pts + 30 extra)
BOTSv1 3.1: MD5 (10 pts)
In Level 2, you found
the name of an executable file the
attackers uploaded to the server.
Examine the "form_data" values to identify the brute force attack.
BOTSv1 3.3: Correct Password (10 pts)
What was the correct password found in the brute force attack?
Hints:
Find the events with the "form_data" values indicating a login attempt.
There are two different "http_user_agent" values.
BOTSv1 3.4: Time Interval (10 pts)
How many seconds elapsed between the time the brute force password scan identified the correct password and the compromised login? Round to 2 decimal places.
Hints:
HINT: Find the two events with the correct password in the "form_data" field.
BOTSv1 3.5: Number of Passwords (10 pts)
How many unique passwords were attempted in the brute force attack?
Find events on that day and look at their IP addresses.
BOTSv1 4.2: Signature ID (5 pts)
Amongst the Suricata signatures that detected the Cerber malware, which one alerted the fewest number of times? Submit ONLY the signature ID value as the answer. (No punctuation, just 7 integers.)
Hints:
Search for Cerber -- you find 21,596 events.
Examine the source field -- there are 4 values.
Explore the source type associated with Suricata.
BOTSv1 4.3: FQDN (15 pts)
What fully qualified domain name (FQDN) does the Cerber ransomware attempt to direct the user to at the end of its encryption phase?
Hints:
New process: Aug 2, 2021:
Find events with a sourcetype of suricata
Restrict the search to events with "alert signature" containing "Onion domain lookup"
Restrict the time to within one second of those events
Look in the "stream:dns" events, in the "query" field
Old process:
Examine the five Suricata alerts about Cerber. View them as "raw text" in time order.
Find a time delay and the domain lookup events after it. Note the latest time of those events.
Use the "Date time range" option of Search to narrow the time range to just a few seconds before the Suricata alert. Check to make sure you can still find the Suricata alerts. You may have to adjust the time by am hour or two to compensate for time zone differences.
Search all events in that small time range. Examine Suricata events. Look at dns-related fields.
BOTSv1 4.4: Suspicious Domain (15 pts)
What was the first suspicious domain visited by we8105desk on 24AUG2016?
Hints:
Find the Suricata events on that day. There are 86,579 of them.
Examine the src_ip field. Restrict your query to the desired value.
Examine the event_type field. Restrict your query to events that load Web pages. There are 38 of them.
Examine the hostnames visited. There are ten of them. Investigate them with Google and find the one that's known to be malicious.
BOTSv1 4.5: VB Script (15 pts)
During the initial Cerber infection a VB script is run. The entire script from this execution, pre-pended by the name of the launching .exe, can be found in a field in Splunk. What is name of the first function defined in the VB script?
Hints:
Search for events with both a filename extension for VB script and an .exe extension. There are 16 of them.
Examine the body field. Find the malicious one.
BOTSv1 4.6: Field Length (15 pts)
During the initial Cerber infection a VB script is run. The entire script from this execution, pre-pended by the name of the launching .exe, can be found in a field in Splunk. What is the length in characters of the value of this field?
Hint:
Find the length of the Splunk field, not the length of the script itself.
This may be helpful.
There are three events with fields that match this description. Use the longest length of those three fields. The longer ones contain the same script, but ampersands are HTML-encoded which makes the field longer.
BOTSv1 4.7: USB key (15 pts)
What is the name of the USB key inserted by Bob Smith?
Bob Smith's workstation (we8105desk) was connected to a file server during the ransomware outbreak. What is the domain name of the file server?
Hints:
Examine SMB stream data for Bob's workstation during the outbreak
Find events with a "path" by adding path="*" to the query
The server name resembles Bob's workstation name.
BOTSv1 4.9: IP Address (15 pts)
Bob Smith's workstation (we8105desk) was connected to a file server during the ransomware outbreak. What is the IP address of the file server?
Hints:
Search for the server's name. Examine the source of those events. Look for source types that record raw network data and would therefore include IP addresses.
BOTSv1 4.10: PDFs (20 pts)
How many distinct PDFs did the ransomware encrypt on the remote file server?
Hints:
Search for .pdf
Restrict your search for the "unknown" app
Find all unique filenames. Remove filenames outside the time range of the attack.
BOTSv1 4.11: Process ID (15 pts)
The VBscript found above launches 121214.tmp. What is the ParentProcessId of this initial launch?
Hints:
Search for 121214.tmp -- you find 190 events.
Examine the EventDescription field and focus on the one most closely related to the question.
Examine the CommandLine field.
BOTSv1 4.12: Text Files (15 pts)
The Cerber ransomware encrypts files located in Bob Smith's Windows profile. How many .txt files does it encrypt?
Hints:
Find all events including.txt and find the path to Bob's Windows profile.
Add Bob's Windows profile path to the search. To search for a backslash, enter two backslashes.
Examine the file paths and remove the ones outside Bob's profile.
BOTSv1 4.13: File Name (15 pts)
The malware downloads a file that contains the Cerber ransomware cryptor code. What is the name of that file?
Hints:
Search for HTTP downloads from the Cerber-related domain you found above.
The filename has a surprising extension. Research that filename outside Splunk to verify that it's related to Cerber.
BOTSv1 4.14: Obfuscation (10 pts)
Now that you know the name of the ransomware's encryptor file, what obfuscation technique does it likely use?
Hints:
Research the file using online resources, outside Splunk, to find this.
