Name:Detect Large Outbound ICMP Packets id:e9c102de-4d43-42a7-b1c8-8062ea297419 version:11 date:2025-03-27 author:Rico Valdez, Dean Luxton, Bhavin Patel, Splunk status:deprecated type:TTP Description:This analytic has been deprecated in favour of a better named detection - Detect Large ICMP Traffic. The following analytic identifies outbound ICMP packets with a size larger than 1,000 bytes. It leverages the Network_Traffic data model to detect unusually large ICMP packets that are not blocked and are destined for external IP addresses. This activity is significant because threat actors often use ICMP for command and control communication, and large ICMP packets can indicate data exfiltration or other malicious activities. If confirmed malicious, this could allow attackers to maintain covert communication channels, exfiltrate sensitive data, or further compromise the network. Data_source:
-Palo Alto Network Traffic
search:| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count earliest(_time) as firstTime latest(_time) as lastTime values(All_Traffic.action) as action values(All_Traffic.bytes) as bytes from datamodel=Network_Traffic where All_Traffic.action !=blocked (All_Traffic.protocol=icmp OR All_Traffic.transport=icmp) All_Traffic.bytes > 1000 AND NOT All_Traffic.dest_ip IN ("10.0.0.0/8","172.16.0.0/12","192.168.0.0/16") by All_Traffic.action All_Traffic.app All_Traffic.bytes All_Traffic.bytes_in All_Traffic.bytes_out All_Traffic.dest All_Traffic.dest_ip All_Traffic.dest_port All_Traffic.dvc All_Traffic.protocol All_Traffic.protocol_version All_Traffic.src All_Traffic.src_ip All_Traffic.src_port All_Traffic.transport All_Traffic.user All_Traffic.vendor_product | `drop_dm_object_name("All_Traffic")` | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` | iplocation dest_ip | `detect_large_outbound_icmp_packets_filter`
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 a good understanding of how your network segments are designed and that you are able to distinguish internal from external address space. Add a category named `internal` to the CIDRs that host the company's assets in the `assets_by_cidr.csv` lookup file, which is located in `$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/SA-IdentityManagement/lookups/`. More information on updating this lookup can be found here: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/ES/5.0.0/Admin/Addassetandidentitydata. This search also requires you to be ingesting your network traffic and populating the Network_Traffic data model known_false_positives:ICMP packets are used in a variety of ways to help troubleshoot networking issues and ensure the proper flow of traffic. As such, it is possible that a large ICMP packet could be perfectly legitimate. If large ICMP packets are associated with Command And Control traffic, there will typically be a large number of these packets observed over time. If the search is providing a large number of false positives, you can modify the macro `detect_large_outbound_icmp_packets_filter` to adjust the byte threshold or add specific IP addresses to an allow list. References: drilldown_searches: name:'View the detection results for - "$src_ip$" and "$dest_ip$"' search:'%original_detection_search% | search src_ip = "$src_ip$" dest_ip = "$dest_ip$"' earliest_offset:'$info_min_time$' latest_offset:'$info_max_time$' name:'View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$src_ip$" and "$dest_ip$"' search:'| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$src_ip$", "$dest_ip$") starthoursago=168 | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(search_name) as "Search Name" values(risk_message) as "Risk Message" values(analyticstories) as "Analytic Stories" values(annotations._all) as "Annotations" values(annotations.mitre_attack.mitre_tactic) as "ATT&CK Tactics" by normalized_risk_object | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`' earliest_offset:'$info_min_time$' latest_offset:'$info_max_time$' tags: analytic_story: - 'Command And Control' - 'China-Nexus Threat Activity' - 'Backdoor Pingpong' asset_type:Endpoint mitre_attack_id: - 'T1095' product: - 'Splunk Enterprise' - 'Splunk Enterprise Security' - 'Splunk Cloud' security_domain:network
