RPC (Remote Procedure Call) from the Internet

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This rule detects network events that may indicate the use of RPC traffic from the Internet. RPC is commonly used by system administrators to remotely control a system for maintenance or to use shared resources. It should almost never be directly exposed to the Internet, as it is frequently targeted and exploited by threat actors as an initial access or backdoor vector.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

  • auditbeat-*
  • filebeat-*
  • packetbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: high

Risk score: 73

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Network
  • Threat Detection
  • Initial Access
  • Host

Version: 100 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.6.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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event.category:(network or network_traffic) and network.transport:tcp
and (destination.port:135 or event.dataset:zeek.dce_rpc) and not
source.ip:( 10.0.0.0/8 or 127.0.0.0/8 or 169.254.0.0/16 or
172.16.0.0/12 or 192.0.0.0/24 or 192.0.0.0/29 or
192.0.0.8/32 or 192.0.0.9/32 or 192.0.0.10/32 or
192.0.0.170/32 or 192.0.0.171/32 or 192.0.2.0/24 or
192.31.196.0/24 or 192.52.193.0/24 or 192.168.0.0/16 or
192.88.99.0/24 or 224.0.0.0/4 or 100.64.0.0/10 or
192.175.48.0/24 or 198.18.0.0/15 or 198.51.100.0/24 or
203.0.113.0/24 or 240.0.0.0/4 or "::1" or "FE80::/10" or
"FF00::/8" ) and destination.ip:( 10.0.0.0/8 or
172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16 )

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 12 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 11 (7.15.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 10 (7.14.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.category:(network or network_traffic) and network.transport:tcp
    and (destination.port:135 or event.dataset:zeek.dce_rpc) and not
    source.ip:( 10.0.0.0/8 or 127.0.0.0/8 or 169.254.0.0/16 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16 or 224.0.0.0/4 or "::1" or "FE80::/10"
    or "FF00::/8" ) and destination.ip:( 10.0.0.0/8 or 172.16.0.0/12 or
    192.168.0.0/16 )
Version 8 (7.12.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 7 (7.11.2 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 6 (7.11.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.category:(network or network_traffic) and network.transport:tcp
    and (destination.port:135 or event.dataset:zeek.dce_rpc) and not
    source.ip:(10.0.0.0/8 or 127.0.0.0/8 or 172.16.0.0/12 or
    192.168.0.0/16 or "::1") and destination.ip:(10.0.0.0/8 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16)
Version 5 (7.10.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (7.9.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    network.transport:tcp and destination.port:135 and not
    source.ip:(10.0.0.0/8 or 127.0.0.0/8 or 172.16.0.0/12 or
    192.168.0.0/16 or "::1") and destination.ip:(10.0.0.0/8 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16)
Version 3 (7.7.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    network.transport: tcp and destination.port: 135 and (
    network.direction: inbound or ( not source.ip: (10.0.0.0/8 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16) and destination.ip: (10.0.0.0/8 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16) ) )
Version 2 (7.6.1 release)
  • Removed auditbeat-*, packetbeat-*, and winlogbeat-* from the rule indices.