Kubernetes Scanning by Unauthenticated IP Address

Original Source: [splunk source]
Name:Kubernetes Scanning by Unauthenticated IP Address
id:f9cadf4e-df22-4f4e-a08f-9d3344c2165d
version:3
date:2024-09-30
author:Patrick Bareiss, Splunk
status:production
type:Anomaly
Description:The following analytic identifies potential scanning activities within a Kubernetes environment by unauthenticated IP addresses. It leverages Kubernetes audit logs to detect multiple unauthorized access attempts (HTTP 403 responses) from the same source IP. This activity is significant as it may indicate an attacker probing for vulnerabilities or attempting to exploit known issues. If confirmed malicious, such scanning could lead to unauthorized access, data breaches, or further exploitation of the Kubernetes infrastructure, compromising the security and integrity of the environment.
Data_source:
  • -Kubernetes Audit
search:`kube_audit` "user.groups{}"="system:unauthenticated" "responseStatus.code"=403
| iplocation sourceIPs{}
| stats count values(userAgent) as userAgent values(user.username) as user.username values(user.groups{}) as user.groups{} values(verb) as verb values(requestURI) as requestURI values(responseStatus.code) as responseStatus.code values(responseStatus.message) as responseStatus.message values(responseStatus.reason) as responseStatus.reason values(responseStatus.status) as responseStatus.status by sourceIPs{} Country City
| where count > 5
| rename sourceIPs{} as src_ip, user.username as user
| `kubernetes_scanning_by_unauthenticated_ip_address_filter`


how_to_implement:The detection is based on data that originates from Kubernetes Audit logs. Ensure that audit logging is enabled in your Kubernetes cluster. Kubernetes audit logs provide a record of the requests made to the Kubernetes API server, which is crucial for monitoring and detecting suspicious activities. Configure the audit policy in Kubernetes to determine what kind of activities are logged. This is done by creating an Audit Policy and providing it to the API server. Use the Splunk OpenTelemetry Collector for Kubernetes to collect the logs. This doc will describe how to collect the audit log file https://github.com/signalfx/splunk-otel-collector-chart/blob/main/docs/migration-from-sck.md. When you want to use this detection with AWS EKS, you need to enable EKS control plane logging https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/control-plane-logs.html. Then you can collect the logs from Cloudwatch using the AWS TA https://splunk.github.io/splunk-add-on-for-amazon-web-services/CloudWatchLogs/.
known_false_positives:unknown
References:
  -https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/debug/debug-cluster/audit/
drilldown_searches:
name:'View the detection results for - "$user$"'
search:'%original_detection_search% | search user = "$user$"'
earliest_offset:'$info_min_time$'
latest_offset:'$info_max_time$'
name:'View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$user$"'
search:'| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$user$") 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:
    - 'Kubernetes Security'
  asset_type:Kubernetes
  confidence:70
  impact:70
  message:Kubernetes scanning from ip $src_ip$
  mitre_attack_id:
    - 'T1046'
  observable:
    name:'user'
    type:'User'
    - role:
      - 'Victim'
    name:'src_ip'
    type:'IP Address'
    - role:
      - 'Attacker'
  product:
    - 'Splunk Enterprise'
    - 'Splunk Enterprise Security'
    - 'Splunk Cloud'
  required_fields:
    - 'verb'
    - 'requestReceivedTimestamp'
    - 'requestURI'
    - 'responseStatus.code'
    - 'sourceIPs{}'
    - 'user.groups{}'
    - 'user.username'
    - 'userAgent'
    - 'verb'
    - 'responseStatus.reason'
    - 'responseStatus.status'
  risk_score:49
  security_domain:network

tests:
name:'True Positive Test'
 attack_data:
  data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1046/kubernetes_scanning/kubernetes_scanning.json
  sourcetype: _json
  source: kubernetes
manual_test:None

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