Detectors
Every Cortex detection rule the toolbox knows about — analytics alerts, BIOCs and correlation rules — in one filterable set.
44 detectors match the current filters.
Download CSV| Type | Name | Severity | Module | Data source / event | ATT&CK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Analytics BIOC | A Possible crypto miner was detected on a host The host produced traffic consistent with the crypto mining. | Medium | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Impact |
| Analytics BIOC | A Torrent client was detected on a host The host produced traffic consistent with the BitTorrent protocol. Torrent usage may expose the organization to malware or enable attackers or malicious insiders to exfiltrate data. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Exfiltration, Initial Access |
| Analytics BIOC | Abnormal Communication to a Rare Domain An abnormal communication was seen from an internal entity to a rare domain. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics | Abnormal connections to a dormant host from a newly seen endpoint The endpoint has performed multiple connections to an endpoint that is relatively inactive on the network. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Discovery |
| Analytics BIOC | Abnormal RDP session to a remote host from a rarely seen host The endpoint performed a rare RDP session to a remote host. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Lateral Movement |
| Analytics BIOC | Abnormal Recurring Communications to a Rare Domain Abnormal communications were seen from an internal entity to a rare external domain. This could be a case of beaconing to a C2 Server. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics BIOC | Authentication Attempt From a Dormant Account A dormant user account tried to authenticate to a service using a TGS after having been unused for a year or more. This may indicate the account is misused by an attacker. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Defense Evasion |
| Analytics | Download pattern that resembles Peer to Peer traffic A possible P2P protocol was spotted from an internal host. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Command and Control, Initial Access |
| Analytics | Failed Connections The endpoint has failed connections to other endpoints that have been inactive for more than 24 hours, or that Cortex XDR Analytics has never seen on the network. The endpoint has made an abnormally large number of these failed connections and/or is attempting to connect to an abnormal mixture of missing or inactive endpoints. Your network might contain legitimate scanners that could cause a false positive for this alert. Cortex XDR Analytics attempts to filter these out by checking if a scanner has been active for a long consecutive period of time. Consequently, if this alert is seen, it represents new activity on your network. An attacker may be trying to move laterally, or to scan different parts of the network to look for other endpoints that expose a specific service. Worms also perform a similar activity to automatically infect additional hosts in the network. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Discovery |
| Analytics BIOC | Failed Login For Locked-Out Account A locked-out user account (event ID 4725 or 4740) was used in a Kerberos TGT pre-authentication attempt. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Defense Evasion |
| Analytics | Kerberos Pre-Auth Failures by Host The endpoint failed an unusual number of Kerberos pre-authentications (TGT requests) from at least three users when compared to its baseline. This can indicate a password-spraying attack. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access |
| Analytics | Kerberos Pre-Auth Failures by User and Host The user account on this host failed Kerberos pre-authentications (TGT requests) an unusual number of times. This can indicate a Kerberos brute-force attack. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access |
| Analytics | Large Upload (FTP) The endpoint transferred an excessively large amounts of data to a single destination over FTP. Cortex XDR Analytics assumes endpoint traffic towards a specific destination should be about the same over long periods of time. For that reason, Cortex XDR detected this abnormal behavior of a large data upload. An attacker may be exfiltrating data directly to the internet using this protocol. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Exfiltration |
| Analytics | Large Upload (Generic) The endpoint transferred large amounts of data to an external site using a different protocol from HTTP/s, FTP, or SMTP. (A specific detector is used for each of those protocols.) Cortex XDR Analytics assumes that data transfers out of your network are ordinarily performed using one of those three services, so it expects that data transfers over all other ports to be low. For the same reason, Cortex XDR Analytics also assumes endpoint traffic towards a specific destination should be about the same over long periods of time. An attacker may be exfiltrating data directly to the internet. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Exfiltration |
| Analytics | Large Upload (HTTPS) The endpoint transferred an excessive amount of data to an external site over HTTPS. The destination is not a popular upload site for endpoints on your network, and the endpoint performing the upload has not previously downloaded a large amount of data from the site. The upload is considered excessive based on comparison to baseline measurements of HTTPS data transfers on your network. An attacker may be exfiltrating data directly to the internet. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Exfiltration |
| Analytics | Large Upload (SMTP) The endpoint, which is not an internal SMTP server, emailed an excessive amount of data from your network. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Exfiltration |
| Analytics | Machine Account NTLM Relay An NTLM NTProofStr was seen from more than one source. This indicates that machine account NTLM authentication data has been relayed. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access, Lateral Movement |
| Analytics | Multiple Weakly-Encrypted Kerberos Tickets Received A user accessed a number of services associated with user accounts in the 10 minutes leading to the alert, generating a number of weakly encrypted Kerberos TGS (ticket granting service) tickets that is significantly larger than the number of weakly encrypted TGS tickets received by that user in the 30 days leading to the alert. Services associated with user accounts are a common target for Kerberoasting due to default weak encryption. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access |
| Analytics | New Administrative Behavior The endpoint performed new administrative actions, relative to its previously profiled behavior. It is possible that an endpoint will infrequently be used for administrative activities, so analytics is performed using logs collected over a long period of time, also comparing the activity to that of other endpoints. That is, if many endpoints are contacting the same destination with the same administrative activity, then this network activity is less likely to result in this alert. An attacker may be operating on the host, probing other computers and moving laterally inside the network using a trusted computer and credentials. Attackers typically exhibit administrative behaviors when performing reconnaissance and lateral movement. | Medium | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Lateral Movement |
| Analytics BIOC | New FTP Server A new FTP server has been detected. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Initial Access, Collection |
| Analytics | NTLM Relay An NTLM NTProofStr was seen from more than one source. This indicates that NTLM authentication data has been relayed. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access, Lateral Movement |
| Analytics | Port Scan The endpoint connected, or attempted to connect, to multiple privileged ports, which are infrequently used by other endpoints (i.e. destination ports that are normally used by many endpoints will not raise this alert). Attackers perform port scans for reconnaissance purposes, to find computers or servers that accept connections on these ports, and to find vulnerable services that can be exploited. Coverage for port scans using data arriving solely from Cortex agents is incomplete. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, Third-Party Firewalls | Discovery |
| Analytics | Port Sweep The endpoint connected, or attempted to connect, to multiple hosts using privileged ports that serve a well-defined function. Attackers perform port sweep for reconnaissance purposes, to find computers or servers that accept connections on these ports, and to find vulnerable services that can be exploited. Coverage for port sweeps using data arriving solely from Cortex agents is incomplete. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Discovery |
| Analytics BIOC | Possible DCSync from a non domain controller Attackers may pose a compromised host as a DC to replicate data to it (DCSync). | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent with eXtended Threat Hunting (XTH) | Credential Access, Defense Evasion |
| Analytics BIOC | Possible IPFS traffic was detected The host attempted to access other nodes in an IPFS manner. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Exfiltration, Initial Access |
| Analytics BIOC | Possible Kerberoasting without SPNs A user specifically requested weak and deprecated encryption in a Kerberos TGS request. This provides easy-to-crack hashes, and is typically a sign of a Kerberoasting attack. The requested service was specified by using a suspicious SPN type, which is often used by Kerberoasting tools to request by SAN instead of SPN. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access |
| Analytics BIOC | Possible use of IPFS was detected The host produced traffic consistent with IPFS. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Exfiltration, Initial Access |
| Analytics BIOC | Rare AppID usage to a rare destination Rare AppID with port usage to rare destination. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics BIOC | Rare process created an SSH session to an uncommon cloud resource A rare process created an SSH session to an uncommon cloud resource. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics BIOC | Rare process created an SSH session to an uncommon external host Rare process created an SSH session to an uncommon external host. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics BIOC | Rare RDP session to a remote host The endpoint performed a rare RDP session to a remote host. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Lateral Movement |
| Analytics BIOC | Rare SMB session to a remote host The endpoint performed a rare SMB activity to a remote host. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Lateral Movement |
| Analytics BIOC | Rare SMTP/S Session The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and its SSL-secured variant SMTPS are used to send email. Attackers can use SMTP/S to exfiltrate data from your network. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Exfiltration |
| Analytics BIOC | RDP from an unmanaged endpoint in a typically managed subnet An RDP connection was established from an unmanaged endpoint in a typically managed subnet, indicating a possible lateral movement. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Lateral Movement |
| Analytics BIOC | Recurring access to rare IP The endpoint is periodically accessing an external fixed-IP address that its peers rarely use. Access to this external IP address has occurred repeatedly over many days. This connection pattern is consistent with malware connecting to its command and control server for updates and operating instructions. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics BIOC | Recurring rare domain access to dynamic DNS domain The endpoint is periodically connecting to an external domain that it and its peers rarely use. Access to this domain has occurred repeatedly over multiple days. This connection pattern is consistent with malware connecting to its command and control server for updates and operating instructions. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics | Spam Bot Traffic The endpoint connected to an excessive number of external SMTP servers. A spambot may be trying to send spam email using multiple SMTP servers. Spambots can cause your domain to be blacklisted, and can contain other malicious functionality. The same mechanism can also be used for exfiltration. Some VPN clients can also tunnel data over SMTP. Note: This detection model looks for SMTP connections to external servers, but the volume of traffic is not considered. A count is performed based on the number of domains being contacted, as well as the number of unresolved IP addresses. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Impact |
| Analytics | Suspicious DNS traffic 10 KB or more were sent encoded in subdomain names during a 10-minute window. All subdomains queried were under a single suspicious domain. DNS tunneling encodes data in DNS queries and responses, allowing an attacker to bypass firewalls and proxies to reach his or her command and control server, even when HTTP/S traffic is blocked. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Command and Control, Exfiltration |
| Analytics BIOC | Suspicious SMB connection from domain controller A domain controller has initiated an SMB connection to another host. The domain controllers usually communicate over SMB only with other domain controllers. An attacker can abuse such sessions for relay attacks. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Lateral Movement |
| Analytics BIOC | Uncommon SSH session was established An uncommon SSH session was established. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent, Third-Party Firewalls | Command and Control |
| Analytics | Unusual SSH Activity Unusual SSH activity was detected that involved a higher than usual volume of data transfer and an abnormally long session. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Command and Control |
| Analytics BIOC | Unusual SSH activity that resembles SSH proxy A host initiated and received an unusual SSH connection, which is consistent with being an SSH proxy. This behavior may indicate an attempt to establish covert command and control communication or to exfiltrate data. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Command and Control |
| Analytics | Upload pattern that resembles Peer to Peer traffic A possible P2P protocol was spotted from an internal host. | Informational | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Command and Control, Initial Access |
| Analytics BIOC | Weakly-Encrypted Kerberos Ticket Requested A user specifically requested weak and deprecated encryption in a Kerberos TGS request. This provides easy-to-crack hashes and is typically a sign of a Kerberoasting attack. | Low | Platform Analytics | Palo Alto Networks Firewall traffic Logs, XDR Agent | Credential Access |