Trying to set up alerts on large file uploads to the Internet

I would like to set up alerts/investigation on any user/PC that is detected uploading a single file larger than say 1GB to the Internet… or a stream of large data (multiple files) to a single destination.

I did find the “Network Flow - Anomalous Data Transfer” detection rule and am attempting to modify it but I’m not clear on the exceptions part or what all I should configure. I’m part of a small IT team so I’m not super specialized/skilled with IDR beyond basic functions, though I am working on it.

Any help or pointers in the right direction will be helpful.

Thanks.

Hey David,

the ADT detection is based off of learning what is “normal” in your environment for a given asset. So it would potentially fire if the machine in question doesn’t normally upload that size of file to the given destination.

As far as reconfiguring it, I wouldn’t suggest that as the best approach. If you’d like us to take a look at building out a rule based on your log data I’d suggest raising a support case so we can hop on a call together

David

Hey David Smith,

That was the impression I got, however the detection has had zero hits in 5+ years and I just uploaded a 1GB file somewhere and was thinking IT should really know about large files being uploaded. I understand the built-in rule looks for anomalies relative to a baseline, and maybe hasn’t seen them yet, but I would really like to know how to either change this rule or create a custom one that will alert on users uploading large files of a specific size, so we have that visibility. Any suggestions?

Do you not have a rule called “Exfiltration - Anomalous Outgoing Data Transfer (1GB+)” in your detection rule library? I do, and we use it and it has been helpful…

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I believe the Default rule action there is set to Off.

@David_Williams If you could confirm the above rule is set to Creates Investigation and that you have a working Network Sensor, that is capturing the traffic from your machine.

If the rule was previously Off and you enable it, I’d suggest re-trying the upload once more.

David

I just looked and yes I do! The ones for 100/500/1000MB+ were off and the only one that was on is the 200GB+ one…

This is exactly what I needed, I just didn’t know what rule name to look for I guess.

Thanks!