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Custom Threat Intelligence integration

Version	0.9.0 [beta] This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features. (View all)
Compatible Kibana version(s)	8.14.0 or higher 9.0.0 or higher
Supported Serverless project types What’s this?	Security Observability
Subscription level What’s this?	Basic
Level of support What’s this?	Elastic

The Custom Threat Intelligence package is an integration designed to ingest threat intelligence IOCs in the STIX 2.1 format and convert them into the Elastic Common Schema (ECS) for seamless ingestion into Elasticsearch. It has been delivered to ingest threat intelligence data for those APIs that do not currently have an existing integration.

The integration comes with a default pipeline that automatically maps standard STIX 2.1 data into ECS fields. However, it also offers the flexibility to handle custom STIX data by allowing users to add custom pipelines accordingly.

Key features

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Supported data sources

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RESTful API:

Connects to public or private RESTful APIs that provide threat intelligence in STIX 2.1 format.
Supports standard HTTP methods for data retrieval, including GET and POST.

TAXII 2.1 Protocol:

Acts as a TAXII client to connect to TAXII 2.x servers, enabling the collection of threat intelligence feeds in STIX format.
It only supports collection models for TAXII data retrieval.

Log files:

Ingests threat intelligence indicators provided in logfile, for air-gapped environments.

STIX 2.1 Compliance

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Indicators are categorized based on their type and stored for further processing. Currently, the supported IOCs types are:

Autonomous System
Domain Name
Email
File
IPv4
IPv6
URL
Windows Registry
x509 Certificates

The default pipeline is able to ingest other types of indicators, although they are not 100% mapped into ECS.

Configuration guidelines

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Due to the lack of standards from some TI providers, it is possible that some extra configuration is required for certain use cases.

When connecting to STIX APIs, by default, the integration provides a native way of acting as a TAXII client. Therefore, for collecting data from TAXII 2.x servers no extra configuration is needed apart from providing the server URL, and authentication credentials when needed.

However, for APIs that don’t follow a specific communication protocol. The correct ingestion of STIX data would require:

Add a CEL program where API specifications are met. Pay special attention to HTTP headers, query parameters, pagination, and the processing of the payload.
Add a initial state to be provided to the program. Generally, it would include the API URL, authentication parameters and intervals. More information can be found in the documentation.

By default the integration only supports STIX 2.1 indicators. This means that to process IOCs in other formats, the Restrict STIX 2.1 format option must be disabled, and a custom pipeline added to map the indicators correctly.

Collecting Threat Intelligence from ISAC Feeds

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The Custom Threat Intelligence integration allows you to connect to and pull threat indicators from any server supporting the TAXII protocol. This makes this integration the perfect fit for retrieving structured threat intelligence from Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), such as MS-ISAC, FS-ISAC, H-ISAC, and others. These ISACs provide STIX-formatted threat data through TAXII servers.

To configure the integration to pull threat intelligence from an ISAC feed, follow these steps:

Ensure ISAC Membership: Confirm that you are a member of the desired ISAC (e.g., MS-ISAC, FS-ISAC) and have access to its TAXII server credentials. Some ISACs require registration and approval before providing TAXII feed access.
Obtain the following information from your ISAC:
- Server URL: The endpoint for the ISAC’s TAXII server (e.g. https://example-isac.org/taxii/).
- Collection Name: The specific collection containing the threat intelligence you want to retrieve.
- Authentication Credentials: Username, password, API Key, or client certificate, as required by the ISAC.
Set up the integration:
- The server URL and collection name should be used to build the URL as follows: https://{base_url}/{api-root}/collections/{name}/objects/
- Provide the username/password, API Key or upload a client certificate, depending on the ISAC’s requirements.
- Set how often the integration should pull updates (e.g. every hour). You can also set the time range to search for indicators when the agent runs for the first time with the Initial Interval.

Once the integration is running and pulling data, it automatically maps threat indicator fields from STIX to ECS. Verify that the imported indicators (e.g. IPs, domains, hashes) align with your detection rules.

Expiration of Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

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The Custom Threat Intelligence integration supports IOC expiration. The ingested IOCs expire after certain duration. Based on the STIX 2.1 reference, the following options are available to determine the expiration of indicators:

The valid_until field that indicates the time at which this Indicator should no longer be considered a valid indicator
The revoked field that means that the indicator is no longer considered valid by the object creator.
When missing valid_until and revoked, the indicator expires according to the default expiration set by IOC Expiration Duration configuration parameter. For more details, see Handling Orphaned IOCs.

The field stix.ioc_expiration_reason indicates which among the 3 methods stated above is the reason for indicator expiration.

An Elastic Transform is created to faciliate only active IOCs be available to the end users. This transform creates destination indices named logs-ti_custom_latest.dest_indicator-* which only contains active and unexpired IOCs. The latest destination index also has an alias named logs-ti_custom_latest.indicator. When querying for active indicators or setting up indicator match rules, only use the latest destination indices or the alias to avoid false positives from expired IOCs.

Handling orphaned IOCs

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Some IOCs may never expire and will continue to stay in the latest destination indices logs-ti_custom_latest.dest_indicator-*. To avoid any false positives from such orphaned IOCs, users are allowed to configure IOC Expiration Duration parameter while setting up the integration. This parameter deletes any indicator ingested into destination indices logs-ti_custom_latest.dest_indicator-* after this specified duration is reached, defaults to 90d from source’s @timestamp field. Note that IOC Expiration Duration parameter only exists to add a fail-safe default expiration in case IOCs never expire.

ILM Policy

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To facilitate IOC expiration, source datastream-backed indices .ds-logs-ti_custom.indicator-* are allowed to contain duplicates from each polling interval. ILM policy is added to these source indices so it doesn’t lead to unbounded growth. This means data in these source indices will be deleted after 5 days from ingested date.

Logs reference

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indicator

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The indicator dataset stores STIX 2.1 indicators processed into ECS.

Example

An example event for indicator looks as following:

{
    "@timestamp": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z",
    "agent": {
        "ephemeral_id": "3179505d-300c-450f-9a13-6c48e97a6453",
        "id": "f2593b61-002f-42d8-b72b-c4181b590c92",
        "name": "elastic-agent-77457",
        "type": "filebeat",
        "version": "8.14.0"
    },
    "data_stream": {
        "dataset": "ti_custom.indicator",
        "namespace": "36027",
        "type": "logs"
    },
    "ecs": {
        "version": "8.11.0"
    },
    "elastic_agent": {
        "id": "f2593b61-002f-42d8-b72b-c4181b590c92",
        "snapshot": false,
        "version": "8.14.0"
    },
    "event": {
        "agent_id_status": "verified",
        "category": [
            "threat"
        ],
        "dataset": "ti_custom.indicator",
        "ingested": "2024-10-02T10:51:17Z",
        "kind": "enrichment",
        "original": "{\"type\":\"indicator\",\"spec_version\":\"2.1\",\"pattern_type\":\"stix\",\"id\":\"indicator--745e1537-b4f3-49da-9f64-df6b1b5df190\",\"created\":\"2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z\",\"modified\":\"2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z\",\"name\":\"Appendix E MD5 hash '002325a0a67fded0381b5648d7fe9b8e'\",\"description\":\"Test description.\",\"pattern\":\"[file:hashes.md5 = '002325a0a67fded0381b5648d7fe9b8e']\",\"indicator_types\":[\"malicious-activity\"],\"valid_from\":\"2015-05-15T09:12:16.432678Z\"}",
        "type": [
            "indicator"
        ]
    },
    "input": {
        "type": "filestream"
    },
    "log": {
        "file": {
            "device_id": "36",
            "inode": "125",
            "path": "/tmp/service_logs/stix-indicators-ndjson.log"
        },
        "offset": 3409
    },
    "related": {
        "hash": [
            "002325a0a67fded0381b5648d7fe9b8e"
        ]
    },
    "stix": {
        "created": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z",
        "id": "indicator--745e1537-b4f3-49da-9f64-df6b1b5df190",
        "indicator_types": [
            "malicious-activity"
        ],
        "ioc_expiration_date": "2015-05-20T09:12:16.432Z",
        "ioc_expiration_duration": "5d",
        "ioc_expiration_reason": "Expiration set by Elastic from the integration's parameter `IOC Expiration Duration`",
        "modified": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z",
        "pattern": "[file:hashes.md5 = '002325a0a67fded0381b5648d7fe9b8e']",
        "pattern_type": "stix",
        "spec_version": "2.1",
        "type": "indicator",
        "valid_from": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432678Z"
    },
    "tags": [
        "preserve_original_event",
        "forwarded",
        "ti_custom-indicator"
    ],
    "threat": {
        "feed": {
            "name": "STIX Provider",
            "reference": "https://stix-example.com"
        },
        "indicator": {
            "description": "Test description.",
            "file": {
                "hash": {
                    "md5": [
                        "002325a0a67fded0381b5648d7fe9b8e"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "first_seen": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z",
            "last_seen": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z",
            "modified_at": "2015-05-15T09:12:16.432Z",
            "name": "Appendix E MD5 hash '002325a0a67fded0381b5648d7fe9b8e'",
            "type": "file"
        }
    }
}

Exported fields

Field	Description	Type
@timestamp	Event timestamp.	date
data_stream.dataset	Data stream dataset.	constant_keyword
data_stream.namespace	Data stream namespace.	constant_keyword
data_stream.type	Data stream type.	constant_keyword
event.dataset	Event dataset	constant_keyword
event.module	Event module	constant_keyword
input.type	Input type	keyword
labels.is_ioc_transform_source	Indicates whether an IOC is in the raw source data stream, or the in latest destination index.	constant_keyword
log.file.device_id	ID of the device containing the filesystem where the file resides.	keyword
log.file.fingerprint	The sha256 fingerprint identity of the file when fingerprinting is enabled.	keyword
log.file.inode	Inode number of the log file.	keyword
log.file.path	Path to the log file.	keyword
log.flags	Flags for the log file.	keyword
log.offset	Offset of the entry in the log file.	long
stix.confidence	The confidence property identifies the confidence that the creator has in the correctness of their data. The confidence value MUST be a number in the range of 0-100.	integer
stix.created	The time at which the STIX Indicator Object was originally created	date
stix.created_by_ref	The created_by_ref property specifies the id property of the identity object that describes the entity that created this object.	keyword
stix.extensions	Specifies any extensions of the object, as a dictionary.	flattened
stix.external_references	The external_references property specifies a list of external references which refers to non-STIX information. This property is used to provide one or more URLs, descriptions, or IDs to records in other systems.	flattened
stix.id	The ID of the indicator.	keyword
stix.indicator_types		keyword
stix.ioc_expiration_date	The expiration date of the indicator. It can be defined from the source event, by the revoked or valid_until fields, or from the integration configuration by ioc_expiration_duration.	date
stix.ioc_expiration_duration	The configured expiration duration for the indicator.	keyword
stix.ioc_expiration_reason	Reason why the indicator is expired. Defined by the integration in the ingest pipeline.	keyword
stix.kill_chain_phases	Describes the various phases of the kill chain that the attacker undertakes.	flattened
stix.lang	Feed language.	keyword
stix.modified	Date of the last modification.	date
stix.object_marking_refs	The object_marking_refs property specifies a list of id properties of marking-definition objects that apply to this object.	keyword
stix.pattern	The detection pattern for the indicator.	keyword
stix.pattern_type	The pattern language used in this indicator, which is always "stix".	keyword
stix.pattern_version	The version of the pattern language that is used in this indicator.	keyword
stix.revoked	The revoked property is only used by STIX Objects that support versioning and indicates whether the object has been revoked. Revoked objects are no longer considered valid by the object creator. Revoking an object is permanent; future versions of the object with this id must not be created.	boolean
stix.spec_version	The version of the STIX specification used to represent this object. The value of this property must be 2.1.	keyword
stix.type	Type of the STIX Object.	keyword
stix.valid_from	The time from which the indicator is considered a valid indicator.	date
stix.valid_until	The time at which the indicator should no longer be considered a valid indicator.	date
threat.indicator.first_seen	The date and time when intelligence source first reported sighting this indicator.	date
threat.indicator.last_seen	The date and time when intelligence source last reported sighting this indicator.	date
threat.indicator.modified_at	The date and time when intelligence source last modified information for this indicator.	date

Changelog

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Changelog

Version	Details	Kibana version(s)
0.9.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Make Accept and Content-Type headers configurable for the TAXII client.	—
0.8.1	Bug fix (View pull request) Add mapping for threat.indicator.url.original in transform.	—
0.8.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Update Kibana constraint to support 9.0.0.	—
0.7.1	Bug fix (View pull request) Updated SSL description to be uniform and to include links to documentation.	—
0.7.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Add mapping for log file fingerprint.	—
0.6.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Support for limit parameter in API requests. Enhancement (View pull request) Use the header X-Taxii-Date-Added-Last to avoid duplicates in successive requests.	—
0.5.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Improve documentation on how to proceed with ISAC feeds.	—
0.4.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Add "preserve_original_event" tag to documents with `event.kind` set to "pipeline_error".	—
0.3.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Support for SSL and Proxy settings. Enhancement (View pull request) Add feed name and feed reference options for API section. Bug fix (View pull request) Fix CEL program to follow TAXII 2.1 specifications.	—
0.2.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Add support for basic authentication. Enhancement (View pull request) Add fingerprint to avoid ingesting duplicated indicators.	—
0.1.3	Bug fix (View pull request) Use triple-brace Mustache templating when referencing variables in ingest pipelines.	—
0.1.2	Bug fix (View pull request) Use triple-brace Mustache templating when referencing variables in ingest pipelines.	—
0.1.1	Bug fix (View pull request) Fix labels.is_ioc_transform_source values	—
0.1.0	Enhancement (View pull request) Initial release of Custom Threat Intelligence package	—

« Collective Intelligence Framework v3 Integration Cybersixgill Darkfeed TAXII Integration »

On this page

Key features
Supported data sources
STIX 2.1 Compliance
Configuration guidelines
Collecting Threat Intelligence from ISAC Feeds
Expiration of Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
Handling orphaned IOCs
ILM Policy
Logs reference
indicator
Changelog

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