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Sources & Rulesets¶

Overview¶

The following diagram illustrates how Stamus Central Server manages and deploy sources and rulesets.

As illustrated by this diagram, the ruleset management encompasses both rulesets and sources. Those can be configured and are accessible through the main menu.

To create a ruleset, you thus must create a set of Sources and then link them to the ruleset. Once this is done, you can select which elements of the source you want to use. For example, in the case of a signature ruleset, you can select which categories you want to use and which individual signature you want do disable.

Once a Ruleset is defined, you can attach it to a Probe through the main menu Appliances. To do that simply edit the Probe object and choose the Ruleset in the list under the Basic tab.

Note

If you are a SELKS user, the menu Appliances won’t be accessible to you. Instead, use the Suricata menu.

Definitions¶

Rule or Signature¶

A rule, or a signature, is used by Suricata to inspect traffic and detect threats, or misconfiguration, based on various criteria to raise alerts.

A signature looks like the following example:

drop tcp $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (msg:”ET TROJAN Likely Bot Nick in IRC (USA +..)”; flow:established,to_server; flowbits:isset,is_proto_irc; content:”NICK “; pcre:”/NICK .*USA.*[0-9]{3,}/i”; reference:url,doc.emergingthreats.net/2008124; classtype:trojan-activity; sid:2008124; rev:2;)

SID Range	Provider
3000000 to 3001000	Stamus Networks
3100000 to 3199999	Stamus Networks
1000000000 to 1002899999	Stamus Networks
2000000 to 2103999	Emerging Threats
2200000 to 2299999	OISF
2400000 to 2609999	Emerging Threats
2610000 to 2619999	TGI Hunting
2800000 to 2899999	Emerging Threats

Source¶

A source reference a set of rules, usually downloaded from third-party services, paid or free. When a source containing signatures is splitted in multiple files, the set of signatures in each individual file is called a category.

For example, https://sslbl.abuse.ch/blacklist/ja3_fingerprints.rules is an example of a free to use source of Suricata rules from Abuse.ch.

Ruleset¶

A ruleset is a collection of sources that aggregate rules. Any ruleset must contains at least one source and can contains as many sources as needed. Similarely, a ruleset can be deployed on one or multiple Stamus Network Probes or Suricata sensors.

There are no limitations in the number of rulesets one may create and transformations such as disabling a specific signature or altering its content can occur before pushing the ruleset to a probe.

Sources¶

There are two methods to create a Source. First one is to use predefined public sources and the second one - via manual addition.

Common options to sources¶

Sources have a set of options that influence the way they are handled by SSP.

If the checkbox Use IP reputation for group signatures is checked then the signature in the source that are referencing a set of IP addresses will be grouped in one single signature using IP reputation instead of the having a set of signatures where each handle a subset of the IP addresses. These signatures are usually factorized if ever their name is under the form Signature_message group [1-9]+. This is the case for instance of some signatures from ETOpen and ETPro rulesets.

If the checkbox Use system proxy is checked, then the source will be fetched using the proxy declared in the settins of the SSP. This is recommended to use unless you have an exception for a source, for instance in the case of a source hosted on a local server.

If the checkbox Source sanitization is checked, then signature that are using unsafe features such as dataset keyword with save or state options and lua scripting will be removed from the source. Having the checkbox checked is the recommended setting for source fetched from Internet.

Adding a Public source¶

Go to Sources -> Add Public Source (Add being in the Actions menu in the sidebar).

Choose a source and click on the Add button. In the popup you can select to which ruleset you want to add the source. In some cases there will be some fields like the secret key provided by the rules editors to be entered.

Adding a Manual source¶

To create a Source go to Sources -> Add Custom Source (Add being in the Actions menu in the sidebar). Then set the different fields and click Submit.

A source of datatype Signatures files in tar archive has to follow some rules:

It must be a tar archive
All files must be under a rules directory

For example, if you want to fetch ETOpen Ruleset for Suricata 4.0, you can use:

Name: ETOpen Ruleset
URI: https://rules.emergingthreats.net/open/suricata-4.0/emerging.rules.tar.gz

A source of datatype Individual signature files has to be a single file containing signatures.

For example, if you want to use SSL blacklist from abuse.ch, you can use:

Name: SSLBL abuse.ch
URI: https://sslbl.abuse.ch/blacklist/sslblacklist.rules

A source of datatype Other content has to be a single file. It will be copied to Suricata rules directory using its name as filename.

If method is HTTP URL, you will see an Optional authorization key field. This field is optional and can be used to authenticate SCS against the remote server. It adds an authorization header to HTTP request allowing authentication on a large number of third party services. This can be used in particular to import signatures from a MISP instance. See MISP documentation for more information.

The usage of private Github repositories to host signatures is also supported through the usage of Optional authorization key, as explained in the Github documentation. Optional authorization key should be filled with token TOKEN, with the second TOKEN being the personal access token created under the user Github profile, Developer Settings page.

If there are signatures being commented with a # in front of the action keyword, those signatures will still be validated and checked to be enabled at a later step. To ignore those signatures completely, but kept in the file, make sure to have ## in front of the action keyword.

Updating a Source¶

To update a Source, you first need to select it. To do that, go to Sources then select the wanted Source in the array.

You can then click on Update in the menu in the sidebar. This step can take long as it can require some download and heavy parsing.

Once updated, you can browse the result by following links in the array.

Rulesets¶

Creating a Ruleset¶

To create a Ruleset go to Ruleset -> Add (Add being in the Actions menu in the sidebar). Then set the name of the Ruleset and choose which Sources to use and click Submit.

You can select the Sources to use and the transformations to apply. For more informations about them, see Rule Transformations.

Updating Rulesets¶

To update a Ruleset, one can choose a combination of the ruleset(s) to update and on which appliance(s) this update will happen.

First, select the ruleset you want to update or the shortcut All Rulesets. If you select All Rulesets, this will also include any subsequent Rulesets that will be created later on. If you select a specific Ruleset, only the network probes on which this Ruleset is attached to will be displayed under the Appliances selection menu.

Then, decide what actions to perform:

Update: to download the latest version of the Sources used by the Ruleset. This action is performed by Stamus Central Server.
Build, Push & Reload: to upload the ruleset to the target Appliances and trigger a Suricata reload.

If you selected a specific ruleset, you will also have the option to perform a ruleset rollback by choosing a previous ruleset version.

Note

A ruleset rollback is used when a given ruleset has errors and one must rollback to a previous version the time to fix the error and avoid behind without detection during the fix period. Stamus Central Server keeps the 20 latests rulesets and when Network Probes use a rolled back version of a ruleset they enter a Frozen state which implies that no scheduled tasks will run until the Network Probes are set back to the latest running ruleset.

For the periodicity, decide if you want to run this update at a specified time and/or regularly.

Hint

To ensure your Network Probes receive frequent updates and keep their detection up to date, create at least one scheduled task, ideally once a day, to update and push rulesets to all appliances.

Finally, select the Appliances concerned by this update. When creating a scheduled or recurring tasks note there is a difference between selecting All Appliances and manually selecting ‘all available appliances’.

Important

When we check the All Appliances checkbox, this implies that all existing appliances will be concerned by this update, and will also include any new network probe that will be added later on. This is convenient as it won’t require us to update this update task. However, if you manually selected each network probes appliances, only the selected appliances will be updated even if new network probes are added later on. For example, if a deployment has 2 network probes and those 2 network probes are selected, only those 2 network probes will be updated, regardless of how many network probes that will be added later.

Exporting Rulesets¶

To export a Ruleset, go to Rulesets page -> View button on the Ruleset you would like to export.

Then, on the left hand side of the page, under Display -> click on Export rules file.

Note

Some local antivirus programs, might stop the rules export. In such cases, a workaround for exporting the rules would be to have them on disk on SCS (and on your SN Probe).

Scheduled Tasks¶

Tasks like update of rulesets can be scheduled in when defined. The schedule and recurrence option is available during the definition of tasks.

To see the list of scheduled tasks, go to Appliances -> Scheduled tasks.

To access to the detailed info on a specific task, click on its ID in the array. From this page you can also delete the task by using the delete link in the side bar.

Editing a Ruleset¶

To edit a Ruleset, you first need to select it. To do that, go to Ruleset then select the wanted Ruleset in the array.

You can then click on Edit in the Action menu in the sidebar.

There is now different operations available in the Action menu

Edit sources: select which sources of signatures to use in the Ruleset
Edit categories: select which categories of signatures to use in the Ruleset
Add rule to disabled list: if a rule is in this list then it will not be part of the generated Ruleset
Remove rule from disabled list: this remove a rule from the previously mentioned list thus re-enabling it in the Ruleset

NOTE You should have in mind, that if you are editing a ruleset to add a new source to it, then it is mandatory that you do both steps:

edit sources -> add the sources you wish
edit categories -> enable the categories you wish

Otherwise, if you don’t enable the categories of your source, you will have an empty Ruleset.

Edit Sources¶

To select which Sources to use, just select them via the checkbox and click on Update sources. Please note that selecting categories to enable is the next step in the process when you add a new source.

Edit Categories¶

To select which Categories to use, just select them via the checkbox and click on Update categories.

Add rule to disabled list¶

Use the search field to find the rule(s) you want to remove, you can use the SID or any other element in the signature. SCS will search the entered text in the definition of signature and return you the list of rules. You will then be able to remove them by clicking on the check boxes and clicking on Add selected rules to disabled rules list.

Remove rule from disabled list¶

To remove rules from disabled list, simply check them in the array and click on Remove select rules from disabled rules list.

Suricata Sensors¶

Setup¶

The Suricata edit page allows you to setup the parameters of the Suricata.

The parameters are the following:

Name: hostname of the probe, be sure it is matching value of host field in JSON events
Descr: description of the suricata
Rules directory: scirius.rules file will be created in this directory. Suricata must only use this file
Suricata configuration file: used to detect some configuration settings
Ruleset: choose the ruleset to use

Updating Suricata Ruleset¶

To update Suricata ruleset, you can go to Suricata -> Update (Update being in the Actions menu). Then you have to select which action you want to do:

Update: download latest version of the Sources used by the Ruleset
Build: build a Suricata ruleset based on current version of the Sources
Push: trigger a Suricata reload to have it running with latest build ruleset

You can also update the ruleset and trigger a Suricata reload by running

python manage.py updatesuricata

Using Custom Rules¶

Initial Configuration¶

It is possible to use your own signatures in SCS. To do so you can use any of the method available to during source creation.

The most common and easiest way is to use a single file containing the signatures you want to add.

To do so, you need to a source of datatype Individual signature files and choose the upload method. The file containing the signatures will be uploaded from your system.

You now have to update or create a ruleset so it is using your custom source. To do so select a ruleset and click on Edit then choose edit sources. Add the source to the list of used sources and apply.

The source is now used by the ruleset but it has no categories activated. So you need to edit the ruleset and click on Edit categories. There select the only category available for your newly added source.

Once done you can push the new ruleset to the probes.

Rules File Update¶

Upload managed file are not updated during ruleset update. To trigger an update, you need to Edit the source and upload a new file.

Then you can apply the ruleset to the selected probee.

Testing the Ruleset¶

SCS is testing sources at upload but you can test them before the upload.

To test your signature file you currently need to get access to a probe running Suricata.

On the probe you can run:

suricata -S custom.rules -T -l /tmp/

The -S is asking Suricata to only load the custom.rules file.
The -T is to run the configuration test mode.

The output is the following when there is a failure:

[15150] 2/7/2023 -- 17:23:12 - (detect-parse.c:613) <Error> (SigParseProto) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL(124)] - protocol "ctp" cannot be used in a signature.  Either detection for this protocol supported yet OR detection has been disabled for protocol through the yaml option app-layer.protocols.ctp.detection-enabled
[15150] 2/7/2023 -- 17:23:12 - (detect.c:370) <Error> (DetectLoadSigFile) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_INVALID_SIGNATURE(39)] - error parsing signature "alert ctp any any -> any any (msg:"SCTP Suricata test 3"; content:"|00 07 02 10|"; offset:0; depth:4; classtype:attempted-admin; sid:3; rev:1; )" from file sctp.rules at line 1
[15150] 2/7/2023 -- 17:23:12 - (detect.c:425) <Warning> (ProcessSigFiles) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_NO_RULES(42)] - No rules loaded from sctp.rules
[15150] 2/7/2023 -- 17:23:12 - (detect.c:498) <Warning> (SigLoadSignatures) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_NO_RULES(42)] - No rules loaded from sctp.rules
[15150] 2/7/2023 -- 17:23:12 - (detect.c:508) <Warning> (SigLoadSignatures) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_NO_RULES_LOADED(43)] - 2 rule files specified, but no rule was loaded at all!
[15150] 2/7/2023 -- 17:23:12 - (suricata.c:1947) <Error> (LoadSignatures) -- [ERRCODE: SC_ERR_NO_RULES_LOADED(43)] - Loading signatures failed.

Threat Intelligence Sources for Datasets¶

Stamus Networks is threat intel vendor agnostic. You can add a Threat Intel Source for Datasets. Such sources are string per line dataset files in txt format. The datasets sources can be many, some more commonly used are listed below:

Domains
HTTP user agents
HTTP hostnames
HTTP URLs
TLS SNI
TLS issuer
TLS subject
TLS fingerprint
JA3S
JA4
File hashes

In order to do this, you first need to configure your Probes, then upload your dataset file and your rule file as a Custom Source. To do so:

You need to add your dataset file as a Custom source:

Go to Sources page
Click on Add Custom Source, under Actions
Name your custom dataset (in the example above, it is named top1mdomains.dataset, so you should name the Custom source the same way)
Under Method, select Upload
Under Datatype, select String dataset file
Add it to a Ruleset by selecting the relevant checkbox
Submit

Add a relevant rule that uses the name of the new dataset-based source. You can either add it via HTTP url or via Upload.

Note

You should use the same name for the rule, as the name you’ve given to your dataset source in Step 2 and in the YAML to include in suricata configuration in Step 1.

Note

For both custom source addition types (http url or upload), you should select Individual Signatures file as Datatype

Important

Use .csv or .lst extension for the actual dataset filename.

Example rule

alert dns any any -> any any (msg:"Stamus Networks Detection - Unusual Domains"; dns.query; dataset:isnotset,top1mdomains,type string,load top1mdomains.lst, memcap 150mb, hashsize 1000000; threshold: type limit, track by_src, seconds 7200, count 1; sid:1910010;)

Update and push the Ruleset on Probe

Suppression and Thresholding¶

Alert numbers for a particular signature can be controlled through suppression or thresholding.

Thresholding is usually used when number of alerts needs to be minimized - as for example maximum 1 alert per minute from that source or destination IP for that signature.

Suppression is used when the alerts need to be suppressed - aka do not generate alerts for that particular signature from that source or destination IP.

Suppress Alerts per Rule¶

From any table displaying a list of alerts, click on the particular sid for the alerts that would need to be suppressed. This will display the rule page. There you can click on Edit rule under Action on the menu on the left hand side, then select Suppress rule in the same menu. From the rule page you can also reach the suppression creation page by being on the Ip and Time stats or Advanced Data tabs and clicking on the x next to the IP address.

On the new page you will be informed if there already is some threshold or suppression in effect for that particular signature. The available fields are:

Ruleset for which ruleset this configuration applies
Track by (mandatory field) to track by source or destination IP
Net for which IP and/or particular network is that valid.

Choose the ruleset , source or destination (for that particular IP) and click +Add.

You should also choose to enforce the suppression for a whole network and/or use a list of IPs. You can add in the Net field like so:

10.10.10.0/24,1.1.1.1,2.2.2.2

Note

Adding the network for a relevant suppression, is mandatory.

You can verify the suppression by clicking on the Rules info tab. You will have an informational display about the status of the different (if any) threshold and suppression configurations. Alternatively you can also view that by clicking Rulesets and selecting the ruleset for which you have applied the particular suppression or threshold.

In order for the suppression to become active you need to Push the updated ruleset to the probes.

Remove Rule Suppression¶

If you wish to remove a Suppress action on a rule and be able to get alerts for the Signature, you need to:

go on rule information page, by searching for the rule sid
click on the rule SID link on the Rules table
go on Information tab
in the Suppresion table, click on the ID of the rule
once redirected, click on Delete link under Actions panel on the left
do an Update/push on the ruleset to make sure changes will be applied on the Ruleset on Probe

Threshold Alerts¶

From any table displaying a list of alerts, click on the particular sid for the alerts that would need to be suppressed. This will display the rule page. There you can click on Edit rule under Action on the menu on the left hand side, then select Threshold rule in the same menu. From the rule page you can also reach the threshold creation page by being on the Ip and Time stats or Advanced Data tabs and clicking on the arrow down (next to the x) next to the IP address.

On the new page you will be informed if there already is some threshold or suppression in effect for that particular signature. The available fields are:

Type type of the threshold, one of:
- limit - limits the alerts to at most “X” times.
- threshold - minimum threshold for a rule before it generates an alert.
- both - both limiting and thresholding are applied.
Ruleset for which ruleset this configuration applies
Track by (mandatory field) to track by source or destination IP
Count number of times the alert is generated.
Seconds within that timespan

You can verify the thresholding by clicking on the Rules info tab. You will have an informational display about the status of the different (if any) threshold and suppression configurations. Alternatively you can also view that by clicking Rulesets and selecting the ruleset for which you have applied the particular suppression or threshold.

In order for the threshold to become active you need to Push the updated ruleset to the probes.

Note

There are several keywords that benefit from thresholding to reduce the noise, like dataset that use the ip type.

Pass on Sightings and Beaconing¶

In some cases the Sightings signatures may trigger too often in some enviornments for specific domains, for example. Bypassing can be achieved by using streambits:set,stamus.pass in a signature in addition to the content match. In the example we use the Domain keyword to enable the bypass for Sightings on the example.com domain, including subdomains.

alert dns any any -> any any (msg:"Bypass Sightings on custom domain"; dns.query; domain; content:"example.com"; streambits: set, stamus.pass; noalert; sid:13370005; rev:1;)

Another scenario is the ML Beacon detection feature, where you might end up with some legit traffic at the top of the scoring. To reduce the priority for known legitimate hosts, you can set a bypass on the TLS SNI using the streambits:set,stamus.pass like in the previous example.

alert tls $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (msg:"Bypass Sightings and ML flow beacon detection on custom domain"; tls.sni; domain; content:"api.proofpoint.com"; streambits: set, stamus.pass; noalert; sid:13370006; rev:1;)

Rule Transformations¶

There is three types of rules transformations. The first one Action allows the action of a particular rule to be changed - to drop, reject or filestore. Please note these actions requires advanced knowledge about rules and the rule keywords language. Second one is Lateral that modify the rules to detect lateral movement and third one is Target that update signatures by adding the target keyword.

Transformation are relative to a ruleset. But they can be set globally on a ruleset or set on a category or on a specific rule. So it is easy to handle exceptions.

Action Transformation¶

Once you have a particular rule that you would like to transform - in the rule’s details page on the left hand side panel under Actions click Transform rule. You will be presented with a few choices:

Type of transformation to choose form:

drop - (IPS mode) will convert the rule from alert to drop - aka IPS mode needs to be explicitly set up and configured before hand.

reject - (IDPS/hybrid) will convert the rule from alert to reject meaning that when triggered a RST/or dst unreachable packets will be send to both the src and dst IP.

filestore - will convert those rules only that have protocols allowing for file extraction - for example alert http... or alert smtp
Choose a ruleset you wish the newly transformed rule to be added/registered in.

Note

A particular rule can be transformed only once.

Note

For using the drop functionality you need to have a valid IPS setup.

After you make the desired selection you can add in a comment for the purpose of accountability and click on Valid. You will have the details about the transformed rule in the Information tab. You can review and confirm the transformation and the ruleset it is add in alongside any comments.

Only rules that are active can be transformed. If a rule is not active in a particular ruleset it will not have the transformation or suppress/threshold options available on the left hand side panel. To make it active you can toggle the availability of that rule by clicking on the Toggle availability option on the left hand side panel menu.

The history tab of the rule details page will have any comments and changes to the transformed rule for traceability.

Lateral Movement¶

Signatures are often written with EXTERNAL_NET and HOME_NET variables. As a consequence, it means that they won’t match if both sides of a flow are within a single area, for example HOME_NET. Thus, lateral movements won’t be detected.

The Lateral transformation helps solving this issue by replacing EXTERNAL_NET by any in applicable signatures, and so detects lateral movement within a single network area.

This option have three values:

No, EXTERNAL_NET substitution isn’t performed, leaving it untouched
Yes, EXTERNAL_NET is replaced by any in all cases
Auto, EXTERNAL_NET is replaced by any under some circumstances

Note

Replacing EXTERNAL_NET by any in all cases can lead to a flood of alerts depending on the rules deployed in your environment.

When choosing Auto, the substitution will only be performed on signatures having the metadata field with the key deployment set to Internal or Datacenter. In all cases, the substitution will not be performed for ET POLICY signatures as they will generate a high level of noise, regardless of the usage of the key deployment.

alert http $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (msg:"ET MALWARE Suspected Powershell Empire POST M1"; flow:to_server,established; http.method; content:"POST"; http.uri; content:".php"; endswith; http.cookie; content:"session="; depth:8; http.header_names; content:"Cookie|0d 0a|User-Agent|0d 0a|Host|0d 0a|"; classtype:trojan-activity; sid:2027283; rev:4; metadata:affected_product Windows_XP_Vista_7_8_10_Server_32_64_Bit, attack_target Client_Endpoint, created_at 2019_04_25, deployment Perimeter, former_category TROJAN, malware_family PowerShell_Empire, signature_severity Major, updated_at 2020_09_17;)

For example, the above signature uses EXTERNAL_NET and set the deployment key to Perimeter. So, if Auto is activated, this rule won’t be mutated to use any instead of EXTERNAL_NET.

Target Keyword¶

Available since Suricata 4.0, the target keyword can be used to tell which side of a flow triggering a signature is the target. If this key is present then related events are enhanced to contain the source and target of the attack.

The option can have four values:

Auto: an algorithm is used to determine the target if there is one
Destination: target is the destination IP
Source: target is the source IP
None: no transformation is done

Custom Suricata keywords¶

The Stamus Network Probes provide some custom keywords that can be used in Suricata signatures that run on those probes.

Note

Those keywords might be integrated into the official Suricata version

Mime_type keyword¶

In addition to the file detection based on the so called file-magic we support the detection based on the file.mime_type of a file, which is a sticky buffer to match on the mime type of a file.

The file.mime_type keyword provided a better performance and provides an alternative approach to file detection.

Some examples for mime types are the following:

application/javascript
application/msword
application/pdf
application/vnd.ms-excel
application/zip
audio/mpeg
image/png
text/plain
text/html

Due to the fact that there are types and subtypes, a signature could match on all types like a match on all application types regardless of the subtype.

An example of a rule that also uses the filestore functionality could look like this:

alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> $HOME_NET any (msg:"Application transfer", file.mime_type; content:"application"; filestore; sid:13370001; rev:1;)

If the File Info protocol is enabled in the NSM Settings it also provides the option to include mime type information to the log output.

Note

Be cautious when combining this with other file related keywords, like smb.file-name for example, in a single rule. They match on different steps of file transfer and this could result in no alert while dedicated rules would trigger.

Domain keyword¶

The domain keyword provides a sticky buffer to match on a domain including subdomains as well. In the example below the match would also work for sub.example.com.

alert dns $HOME_NET any -> any any (msg:"DNS domain match"; flow:established,to_server; dns.query; domain; content:"example.com" sid:13370002; rev:1;)

TLD keyword¶

The tld keyword provides a buffer to extract the top-level domain (TLD), in the example the match looks for .com domains.

alert dns $HOME_NET any -> any any (msg:"TLD match"; flow:established,to_server; dns.query; tld; content:"com" sid:13370003; rev:1;)

Config keyword¶

The config keyword can be used to change parts of the Suricata config for a flow, transaction, packet or other unit, once the rule matches.

One example would be to use it for rule based conditional logging. This might help to minimize noise but on the other hand would have impact on detection. So this option should be used with caution.

The following rule disables HTTP protocol logging for a dedicated domain as part of a HTTP Host header.

config http any any -> any any (msg:"Conditional logging - HTTP host v1 "; http.host; dotprefix; content:"stamus-networks.com"; endswith; config: logging disable, type tx, scope tx; sid:1300112;)

The following rule disables HTTP protocol logging for a dedicated IP (aka requests to and from the http server) as part of a HTTP Host header.

config http any any -> any any (msg:"Conditional logging - HTTP host v2 "; http.host; content:"1.2.3.4"; endswith; config: logging disable, type tx, scope tx; sid:1234566;)

The following rule disables HTTP protocol logging for any HTTP communication that has http User-Agent containing the string abcxyz.

config http any any -> any any (msg:"Conditional logging - HTTP host v3 "; http.user_agent; content:"abcxyz"; config: logging disable, type tx, scope tx; sid:1234567;)

The following rule disables DNS protocol logging for any dns queries or replies related to the domain .myexample.net and any wildcards/variations of it.

config dns any any -> any any (msg:"Conditional logging - DNS host v1 "; dns.query; dotprefix; content:".myexample.net"; nocase; endswith; config: logging disable, type tx, scope tx; sid:1234568;)

The following rule disables TLS protocol logging for any TLS communication that uses SNI with .myexample.com wild-carded.

config tls any any -> any any (msg:"Conditional logging - TLS host v1 "; tls.sni; dotprefix; content:".myexample.com"; nocase; endswith; config: logging disable, type tx, scope tx; sid:1234569;)

The action keyword config at the beginning ensures that the rule won’t trigger an alert event once it matches.

Suricata keywords recommendations¶

IP Match¶

The ip.src and ip.dst keywords provide a sticky buffer to match on the source/destination IP in binary representation and is compatible with the dataset types ip and ipv4. One might ensure with threshold that the rule doesn’t trigger for each packet, in the example it’s limited to once per 60 seconds if the inbound source IP is in a dataset with bad IPs.

alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> $HOME_NET any (msg:"Inbound bad IP"; flow:to_server; ip.src; dataset:isset,badips,type ip,load badips.list; threshold: type limit, track by_src, count 1, seconds 60; sid:1337004; rev:1;)

Suricata signature rule writing guidelines¶

There are some basic recommendations to keep in mind when writing Suricata signatures. Bad written signatures can result in very bad detection performance for the whole system or generate very noisy alerts.

Network variables¶

Make sure that the variables HOME_NET and EXTERNAL_NET are correctly set, since a big portion if signatures rely on those. Also ensure to use those or more specific variables instead of any unless there is a good reason to not follow that.

Flow direction and state¶

It’s recommended to focus on the direction on the traffic that you want to match on, so setting the direction for a match wtih -> is recommended. In addition to that you should also consider using the flow keyword and set it to :to_server,established if the match should only occur on flows that are already established towards the server.

Sticky buffer¶

In general the so called sticky buffers in Suricata provide a better performance compared to the legacy keywords. They need to be placed first and all keywords following it would apply to that buffer.

Update revision¶

Each time you change a signature, increase the revision value rev:, otherwise it will not be loaded and updated by the engine.

Dashboards¶

There are several Kibana dashboards that provide you with additional information. So for example you can check on all the used TLS versions in Kibana instead of writing a dedicated signature. Another example would be to check for SSH connections in the SN-SSH dashboard that are not using the default port 22.

Furthermore, there is the SN-SIGNATURE-Performance dashboard (from Kibana Dashboards) that would highlight any signature that has a bad impact on performance and a lot of hits.

Note

By default only the top 10 signatures are shown. This can be adjusted via Custom suricata runtime flags

Example¶

It’s important to reason about the intention of a signature and if there is a better alternative to a signature. If you want to see all ssh connections that are not using the default port 22, the data is already available in the SSH protocol logs generated. This data can be checked either in Kibana or in Splunk (if used), instead of writing a dedicated signature.

If the intention is still to write a signature, it needs to be written properly.

To give you an example, look at this rather simple signature:

alert ip any any -> any !22 (msg:"Custom SSH port traffic to non default port 22 detected"; sid:1000001; )

While it is a valid signature it would generate a lot of events and also many packets would be checked each time by the engine, this would cost performance. The second examples is much more precise and the protocol definition alongside the network variables would already reduce the amount of events and reduces the load on the engine.

alert tcp $HOME_NET any -> $EXERNAL_NET !22 (msg:"Custom SSH port traffic to non default port 22 detected"; flow:to_server, established; app-layer-protocol:ssh; threshold: type both, track by_src, count 1, seconds 360; rev:1; sid:1000001;)

It also makes use of the application layer parser in Suricata and strictly limits the occurences by using threshold.

Further suggestions¶

As described in several sections on this document, using threshold is a good way to limit alerts and reduce the noise.

You can also checkout the Suricata Language Server and integrate it into your editor, this would help with syntax highlighting and rule writing suggestions. The SLS can be found at Github (SLS)

If possible, write several variants of a signature to see what has the best performance but also detection.

engine-analysis¶

Suricata provides a dedicated mode for analysing signatures in the engine. You can pass it to a local installed Suricata like this:

suricata -S test.rules --engine-analysis -l /tmp/logs -T

This would result in some additional log files which provide more advanced statistics and details of the impact of your signatures.

patterns.json
prefilter_pref.log
rule_group_perf.log
rule_perf.log
rules_analysis.txt
rules_fast_pattern.txt

One of the important ones would be the rules_analysis.txt logfile which would show potentialn issues and warnings:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 27/10/2023 -- 08:15:45
-------------------------------------------------------------------
 == Sid: 1000001 ==
alert tls $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any
(msg:"SN possible CVE-2022-3602"; flow:established,to_client; tls.cert_issuer; content:"subjectAltName"; fast_pattern; nocase ;  content:"@"; content:"xn-"; reference:url,github.com/colmmacc/CV
E-2022-3602; classtype:trojan-activity; sid:1000001; rev:1; metadata:attack_target Client_Endpoint, created_at 2022_11_01,  updated_at 2022_11_01;)
App layer protocol is tls.
Rule contains 3 content options, 0 http content options, 0 pcre options, and 0 pcre options with http modifiers.
Fast Pattern "subjectaltname" on "TLS certificate issuer (tls.cert_issuer)" buffer.
No warnings for this rule.