- Prerequisites for Configuring Exabeam Threat Detection, Investigation & Response (TDIR) Use Case Categories
- Configure Compromised Insiders Use Cases
- Configure External Threats Use Cases
- Configure Malicious Insiders Use Cases
Configure the Privilege Escalation Use Case
Configure Exabeam Security Operations Platform to protect your environment against the Privilege Escalation use case. Ensure that you collect the right data, set up investigation tools, enable response mechanisms, and import relevant Data Lake reports.
To protect against a use case, you might follow an end-to-end workflow that looks like:
Collect – Ensure that you bring in the correct logs for the use case and that all fields populate.
Detect – Use out-of-the-box rules and models to identify suspicious activity.
Investigate – Ask important questions about the data from log sources, rules, and models.
Respond – Isolate, neutralize, eliminate, and mitigate any threats you find.
Report – Gather all the evidence in a report so you can share your investigation with others or use for compliance purposes.
Let's configure everything you need to successfully follow each stage of this workflow.
Collect
Collect the data needed to investigate the Privilege Escalation use case and ensure all context tables are populated correctly.
Ensure that you contacted Exabeam Customer Success and they helped you onboard and validate the log sources needed to implement the Privilege Escalation use case.
Ensure that you have the user_is_executive out-of-the-box context table.
Ensure that users and assets have the correct labels based on the context tables. For example, if a user is in the user_is_privileged context table, navigate to the user's profile to verify they have the privileged label.
Detect
Ensure you have all mechanisms in place, like rules, models, watchlists, and Threat Hunter searches, to successfully identify suspicious activity.
Rules and models
Validate out-of-the-box rules and models to ensure you accurately detect anomalous activity.
Import the latest content packages on the Exabeam Community. These content packages contain the latest rules and models, which aren't available to install in Content Updates settings. You must download them from the Exabeam Community, then import them.
Ensure that related rules and models are triggering correctly.
Threat Hunter searches
To quickly search for events that may indicate an attacker is escalating privileges, create and save the suggested Threat Hunter search queries.
Threat Hunter search | Search criteria |
|---|---|
Hosts that run credential enumeration tools |
|
Users who run credential enumeration tools |
|
Abnormal account switches |
|
Administrator's first account switch |
|
Users who triggered security alerts and switched accounts abnormally |
|
New users who switched accounts |
|
BloodHound possibly executed |
|
Configure Settings to Search for Data Lake Logs in Advanced Analytics
If you have an on-premises deployment, ensure that you configure certain Advanced Analytics settings so you can search for Data Lake logs from a Smart Timelines™ event.
If you have a cloud-delivered product offering, ensure that you configure Data Lake as a log source.
Investigate
Ensure you have the tools you need, like tasks and incident types, to investigate the evidence you collect from log sources, rules, and models.
Case Manager Incident Type
In Case Manager, ensure that you have the out-of-the-box Privilege Escalation incident type, or create one if it isn't available out-of-the-box in your Exabeam version. Ensure the incident type has all corresponding incident fields.
Case Manager Tasks and Phases
In Case Manager, define a clear response plan to ensure everyone across your organization responds to a Privilege Escalation incident consistently. Under each phase, prescribe the relevant tasks for investigating, containing, and remediating a Privilege Escalation incident.
The out-of-the-box Privilege Escalation incident type comes with suggested phases and tasks. If you don't have the out-of-the-box Privilege Escalation incident type, create the following suggested phases and tasks for your custom Privilege Escalation incident type.
Phase: Detection & Analysis
Task name – Identify suspicious activity
Task instruction:
Find evidence that a regular or lower-privileged account accessed or gained rights to a privileged account or resource.
Determine if the privileged account is behaving differently.
Determine what kind of privileged account the attacker using; for example, administrator, executive, or service account.
Determine what resources the attacker can access based on the rights they have.
Task name – Review the user's profile
Task instruction:
Determine which accounts had their privileges escalated.
Determine if the accounts are for domains or local users.
Determine if the activity on the account is consistent with the account's intended function and role.
Determine if another user, peer, or anyone else in your organization has done something similar before.
Determine if any tickets approved this activity.
Task name – Analyze and scope
Task instruction:
Determine what systems, like workstations or servers, were involved.
Determine if the potentially impacted systems are critical business or infrastructure systems.
Determine if the systems involved contain critical, confidential, restricted, or controlled information.
Retrospectively search for and identify other potentially impacted systems.
Determine when the anomalous activity started.
Find evidence that the account is compromised. If you find evidence, determine who compromised the account.
Determine if the attacker could use the same vulnerability again to compromise another account or system.
Task name – Retrospectively search for anomalous activity
Task instruction:
Determine when initial activity likely began and revise this as you investigate and learn new information.
Determine if logs from potentially impacted systems were sent to your centralized SIEM or log aggregation platform.
Determine if there was any additional anomalous activity, like if the account accessed new applications, triggered security alerts, or exfiltrated data.
Determine if any new processes were executed or software was installed. Investigate if the processes or software were used nefariously.
Determine if the user disabled any security tools on the endpoint, like Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), or Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools.
Determine if the affected systems connected to suspicious network destinations. This may indicate data was exfiltrated. If the systems connected to suspicious network destinations, complete the tasks for Malware and Data Exfiltration incidents.
Task name – Proactively monitor impacted users and systems
Task instruction – Add the systems and users to a watchlist to proactively monitor them.
Task name – Reassess the severity of the incident
Task instruction – If appropriate, edit the incident priority.
Phase: Containment
Task name – Tell the SOC Manager about the incident
Task instruction:
If needed, inform your SOC Manager of the incident and include the incident's expected start and end date.
Determine whether additional team members or teams, like HR, Legal, or Physical Security, must get involved.
Task name – Determine adequate response measures to contain the threat
Task instruction:
Disable the accounts that made unauthorized changes.
Quarantine systems to prevent anybody from accessing them. Inform any business and asset owners as needed.
For any suspicious accounts, ensure their access is disabled, including access to VPN or SSO.
Phase: Eradication
Task name – Preserve logs for impacted systems and users
Task instruction:
Retrieve and preserve Data Lake logs associated with the user from the expected start to the present.
Upload the Data Lake logs to the incident.
If there's possible nefarious intent, obtain a forensic image of the system or isolate the physical machine from the network.
Task name – Remediate
Task instruction – Manually remove remnants like files, Microsoft registry keys, and autostart services, or re-image the impacted systems using the latest enterprise image and updated software patches.
Phase: Recovery
Task name – Proactively check systems.
Task instruction:
Validate systems are running as expected.
Analyze and review accounts for suspicious activity.
Ensure security monitoring tools are installed on the endpoint.
Task name – Implement relevant global security measures
Task instruction – Implement security controls to prevent a similar incident from happening.
Phase: Post-Incident Activity
Task name – Update documentation
Task instruction:
Ensure the incident contains documentation of all relevant events and actions taken.
Identify methods to improve the team’s response to future incidents.
Task name – Hold post-mortem meeting
Task instruction:
Meet with your team. Review the incident and lessons learned.
Document and track administrative and technical gaps identified during the incident.
Case Manager Incident Email Communication
To collaborate on an incident with people across your organization, ensure that you configure incident email communication.
Respond
Enable response mechanisms you need to isolate, neutralize, eliminate, and mitigate any threats you find.
In Incident Responder, create triggers for all turnkey playbooks.
Report
To share your investigation with others or for compliance purposes, ensure you have the relevant out-of-the-box Data Lake reports:
Exabeam - Default Credential Usage and Change Activity
Exabeam - Unix User Privilege Elevation
Exabeam - Windows User Privilege Elevation