Detect Outbound SMB Traffic
THIS IS A EXPERIMENTAL DETECTION
This detection has been marked experimental by the Splunk Threat Research team. This means we have not been able to test, simulate, or build datasets for this detection. Use at your own risk. This analytic is NOT supported.
Description
This search looks for outbound SMB connections made by hosts within your network to the Internet. SMB traffic is used for Windows file-sharing activity. One of the techniques often used by attackers involves retrieving the credential hash using an SMB request made to a compromised server controlled by the threat actor.
- Type: TTP
- Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
- Datamodel: Network_Traffic
- Last Updated: 2020-07-21
- Author: Bhavin Patel, Stuart Hopkins from Splunk
- ID: 1bed7774-304a-4e8f-9d72-d80e45ff492b
Annotations
ATT&CK
Kill Chain Phase
- Command and Control
NIST
- DE.CM
CIS20
- CIS 13
CVE
Search
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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` earliest(_time) as start_time latest(_time) as end_time values(All_Traffic.action) as action values(All_Traffic.app) as app values(All_Traffic.dest_ip) as dest_ip values(All_Traffic.dest_port) as dest_port values(sourcetype) as sourcetype count from datamodel=Network_Traffic where ((All_Traffic.dest_port=139 OR All_Traffic.dest_port=445 OR All_Traffic.app="smb") AND NOT (All_Traffic.action="blocked" OR All_Traffic.dest_category="internal" OR All_Traffic.dest_ip=10.0.0.0/8 OR All_Traffic.dest_ip=172.16.0.0/12 OR All_Traffic.dest_ip=192.168.0.0/16 OR All_Traffic.dest_ip=100.64.0.0/10)) by All_Traffic.src_ip
| `drop_dm_object_name("All_Traffic")`
| `security_content_ctime(start_time)`
| `security_content_ctime(end_time)`
| `detect_outbound_smb_traffic_filter`
Macros
The SPL above uses the following Macros:
detect_outbound_smb_traffic_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
- All_Traffic.action
- All_Traffic.app
- All_Traffic.dest_ip
- All_Traffic.dest_port
- sourcetype
- All_Traffic.dest_category
- All_Traffic.src_ip
How To Implement
In order to run this search effectively, we highly recommend that you leverage the Assets and Identity framework. It is important that you have good understanding of how your network segments are designed, and be able to distinguish internal from external address space. Add a category named internal to the CIDRs that host the companys assets in assets_by_cidr.csv lookup file, which is located in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/SA-IdentityManagement/lookups/. More information on updating this lookup can be found here: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/ES/5.0.0/Admin/Addassetandidentitydata. This search also requires you to be ingesting your network traffic and populating the Network_Traffic data model
Known False Positives
It is likely that the outbound Server Message Block (SMB) traffic is legitimate, if the company's internal networks are not well-defined in the Assets and Identity Framework. Categorize the internal CIDR blocks as internal in the lookup file to avoid creating notable events for traffic destined to those CIDR blocks. Any other network connection that is going out to the Internet should be investigated and blocked. Best practices suggest preventing external communications of all SMB versions and related protocols at the network boundary.
Associated Analytic Story
RBA
| Risk Score | Impact | Confidence | Message |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25.0 | 50 | 50 | tbd |
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