Default Cobalt Strike Team Server Certificate
editDefault Cobalt Strike Team Server Certificate
editThis rule detects the use of the default Cobalt Strike Team Server TLS certificate. Cobalt Strike is software for Adversary Simulations and Red Team Operations which are security assessments that replicate the tactics and techniques of an advanced adversary in a network. Modifications to the Packetbeat configuration can be made to include MD5 and SHA256 hashing algorithms (the default is SHA1). See the References section for additional information on module configuration.
Rule type: query
Rule indices:
- auditbeat-*
- filebeat-*
- packetbeat-*
- logs-endpoint.events.*
Severity: critical
Risk score: 99
Runs every: 5 minutes
Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
References:
- https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0154/
- https://www.cobaltstrike.com/help-setup-collaboration
- https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/packetbeat/current/configuration-tls.html
- https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.9/filebeat-module-suricata.html
- https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.9/filebeat-module-zeek.html
Tags:
- Command and Control
- Post-Execution
- Threat Detection
- Elastic
- Network
- Host
Version: 7 (version history)
Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0
Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0
Rule authors: Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Investigation guide
edit## Threat intel While Cobalt Strike is intended to be used for penetration tests and IR training, it is frequently used by actual threat actors (TA) such as APT19, APT29, APT32, APT41, FIN6, DarkHydrus, CopyKittens, Cobalt Group, Leviathan, and many other unnamed criminal TAs. This rule uses high-confidence atomic indicators, so alerts should be investigated rapidly.
Rule query
editevent.category:(network or network_traffic) and (tls.server.hash.md5:950098276A495286EB2A2556FBAB6D83 or tls.server.hash.sha1:6ECE5ECE4192683D2D84E25B0BA7E04F9CB7EB7C or tls .server.hash.sha256:87F2085C32B6A2CC709B365F55873E207A9CAA10BFFECF2FD1 6D3CF9D94D390C)
Threat mapping
editFramework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Command and Control
- ID: TA0011
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0011/
-
Technique:
- Name: Application Layer Protocol
- ID: T1071
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1071/
Rule version history
edit- Version 7 (8.4.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 6 (7.15.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 5 (7.14.0 release)
-
-
Updated query, changed from:
event.category:(network or network_traffic) and (tls.server.hash.md5:950098276A495286EB2A2556FBAB6D83 or tls.server.hash.sha1:6ECE5ECE4192683D2D84E25B0BA7E04F9CB7EB7C or tls.s erver.hash.sha256:87F2085C32B6A2CC709B365F55873E207A9CAA10BFFECF2FD16D 3CF9D94D390C)
-
- Version 4 (7.13.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 3 (7.12.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 2 (7.11.2 release)
-
- Formatting only