Log Data - CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 - 4.9
Summary
TLDRThis script delves into the critical role of log files in network security, detailing how they document traffic, exploit attempts, and potential threats. It highlights the insights gained from firewall logs, endpoint devices, and SIEM systems, and underscores the importance of analyzing metadata and packet captures for a holistic security approach.
Takeaways
- 🗂️ Storing Security Logs: The script emphasizes the importance of storing a vast amount of security-related information in log files across various network components like servers and devices.
- 🚫 Traffic Analysis: Log files document traffic flows, including both allowed and blocked traffic, providing insights into network security and potential threats.
- 🔎 Intrusion Detection: Intrusion prevention devices can offer detailed lists of exploit attempts, helping in identifying and mitigating security breaches.
- 🌐 URL Categorization: The script highlights the ability to view categories of URLs that may be blocked on a user's workstation, which is crucial for understanding web traffic control.
- 🔍 DNS Sinkhole Traffic: Monitoring DNS sinkhole traffic can indicate malicious processes within the network, a valuable insight for security analysts.
- 🔒 Firewall Logs: Firewall logs are a rich source of information about traffic flows, including source and destination IP addresses, port numbers, and the actions taken by the firewall.
- 🌟 Next-Gen Firewalls: Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) provide detailed insights into applications in use and can identify suspicious data or anomalies within traffic flows.
- 📝 Application Logs: Logs from applications like Windows Event Viewer or Linux /var/log directory are crucial for analyzing security events and can be integrated into a SIEM for comprehensive analysis.
- 📲 Endpoint Device Logs: Endpoint devices such as laptops and smartphones contain detailed logs that can be aggregated to a SIEM for a holistic view of network activities.
- 🛡️ Operating System Logs: Operating systems maintain security event logs that can alert to potential security issues, such as unauthorized service disablement or system file changes.
- 🚀 IPS/IDS Events: Intrusion prevention and detection systems provide logs on known vulnerabilities and attacks, which are essential for proactive security measures.
- 📑 Metadata Analysis: The script points out the value of metadata in documents and emails, which can reveal hidden information about file origins and transfer processes.
- 🔄 Vulnerability Scans: Logs from vulnerability scans are vital for identifying and rectifying security weaknesses in the network, such as misconfigured devices or unsupported operating systems.
- 📊 Automated Reporting: SIEMs can generate automated reports that summarize security data, but their effectiveness depends on regular review and action by security teams.
- 📊 Dashboard Overview: SIEMs and security devices often offer customizable dashboards for quick, at-a-glance insights into network security status and active alerts.
- 🔎 Packet Analysis: Network packet analysis with tools like Wireshark provides detailed insights into traffic flows at the packet level, aiding in the identification of security issues.
Q & A
What types of information are typically stored in security log files?
-Security log files store information such as traffic flows that were blocked or allowed, exploit attempts, categories of URLs that may be blocked, and DNS sinkhole traffic, which can indicate malicious processes within the network.
How do firewall logs contribute to network security?
-Firewall logs provide detailed information about traffic flows, including the source and destination IP addresses, port numbers, and the actions taken by the firewall, such as allowing or blocking the traffic. This helps in documenting and analyzing potential security events.
What is a Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) and how does it enhance security?
-A Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is an advanced firewall that not only monitors traffic but also provides information about the applications in use, feedback on URLs or URL categories, and can identify suspicious data or anomalies within traffic flows.
How can endpoint devices contribute to security monitoring?
-Endpoint devices such as laptops, desktops, phones, and tablets contain log details about login and logout events, system events, processes, device management like password changes, and directory services. These logs can be aggregated to a SIEM for comprehensive security analysis.
What is a Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) and its role in security?
-A Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) is a system that aggregates log data from various sources within the network, allowing for the parsing and correlation of data to identify and respond to security incidents.
What kind of information can be extracted from operating system logs?
-Operating system logs can provide information about security events, such as brute force attacks, changes to critical system files, and authentication-related activities. They can also alert to unusual activities like the disabling of essential services.
How do Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) or Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) contribute to network security?
-IPS and IDS systems monitor network traffic for suspicious activities and known vulnerabilities or attack patterns. They log detailed information about potential threats, which can be integrated into a SIEM for further analysis.
What insights can be gained from analyzing metadata in documents transferred over a network?
-Metadata in documents can reveal information about the file's creation, the creator's details, GPS coordinates for images, and other hidden data that can be crucial for understanding the context and origin of the document.
How do vulnerability scans help in identifying security weaknesses in a network?
-Vulnerability scans identify devices without proper security configurations, such as missing firewalls or antivirus software, misconfigured shares, and operating systems with guest access enabled, which can be exploited by attackers.
What is the importance of automated reporting in SIEM systems?
-Automated reporting in SIEM systems helps in efficiently generating security insights and summaries, which are crucial for making informed security decisions. However, the value of these reports depends on their regular review and action by the security team.
How can network packet analysis tools like Wireshark contribute to security monitoring?
-Network packet analysis tools capture and analyze data at the packet level, providing detailed insights into traffic flows, applications, and potential security issues. This granular data can be invaluable for diagnosing and responding to network security incidents.
Outlines
🔒 Network Security Log Analysis
This paragraph discusses the importance of analyzing log files for network security. It covers the types of information stored in these logs, such as traffic flows, blocked and allowed traffic, exploit attempts, and DNS sinkhole traffic. The role of firewall logs, especially Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), in providing detailed traffic information, including source and destination IP addresses, port numbers, and application usage, is highlighted. The paragraph also touches on the integration of these logs into a Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) for comprehensive security event analysis.
🕵️♂️ Gathering Security Intelligence from Various Sources
The second paragraph delves into the various sources from which security intelligence can be gathered, including IPS/IDS events, network infrastructure devices, and metadata from documents and emails. It explains how these sources provide valuable insights into potential security threats and vulnerabilities, such as denial of service attacks, authentication errors, and misconfigurations. The paragraph emphasizes the integration of this information into a SIEM for automated reporting and analysis, as well as the importance of not ignoring these reports for effective security management.
📊 Utilizing SIEM Dashboards and Network Analysis Tools
The final paragraph focuses on the practical use of SIEM for security monitoring and analysis. It discusses the generation of automated reports and the challenges of creating efficient and relevant reports from vast amounts of data. The importance of dashboards for quick, at-a-glance insights into the network's security status is highlighted, along with the customization options available. The paragraph concludes with a discussion on network packet analysis using tools like Wireshark, which provides detailed traffic flow information at the packet level, essential for identifying and understanding complex security issues.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Log Files
💡Exploit Attempts
💡Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)
💡Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)
💡Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
💡Endpoint Devices
💡Metadata
💡Vulnerability Scans
💡Dashboard
💡Packet Analysis
💡Automated Reports
Highlights
Storing massive amounts of security-related information in log files across network components allows documenting traffic flows and potential attacks.
Log files can provide lists of exploit attempts, especially from intrusion prevention devices.
Monitoring categories of URLs blocked on user workstations can identify potential security threats.
DNS sinkhole traffic may indicate malicious processes occurring within the network.
Firewall logs provide detailed information about traffic flows, including source and destination IP addresses, port numbers, and whether traffic is allowed or blocked.
Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) offer insights into applications in use and can flag suspicious URLs or anomalies.
Firewall logs from NGFWs display traffic flow details such as time, date, source IP, MAC address, destination IP, application, and disposition.
Application logs from tools like Windows Event Viewer or /var/log directories on Linux/MacOS can be crucial for analyzing security events.
Endpoint devices like laptops, phones, and tablets contain extensive log data on events like log in/out, system events, and device management.
Endpoint logs can be aggregated in a Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) for correlation with network and device data.
Operating systems maintain security event logs that can alert on issues like brute force attacks or unauthorized changes to critical system files.
Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) or Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) provide detailed logs on known vulnerabilities and attack types.
Network infrastructure devices like switches and routers generate logs that can identify changes to routing tables or authentication errors.
Metadata in documents and emails can reveal important information about file origins, transfer processes, and user details.
Vulnerability scans create logs detailing identified issues like misconfigured devices, unsupported operating systems, and unpatched vulnerabilities.
SIEMs can generate automated reports and dashboards for efficient analysis and real-time monitoring of security data.
Packet analysis tools like Wireshark provide deep insights into network traffic at the packet level, aiding in the identification of security issues.
Transcripts
We store a massive amount of security related information
in log files contained in servers, devices,
and other components on our network.
Those log files contain information such as the traffic
flows that were blocked and the traffic
flows that were allowed.
We can get a list of exploit attempts,
especially from intrusion prevention devices.
We might want to see what categories of URLs
may be blocked on a particular user's workstation.
And we can see DNS sinkhole traffic,
which could point to some type of malicious process occurring
within our own network.
This allows us to document every traffic flow
on the network, where we can provide information
on what attacks may be occurring,
and we can correlate that information
with other logs contained in other devices.
One of those devices that contains an amazing amount
of detail about the traffic on our network
is the firewall log.
Our firewalls are often monitoring all traffic
that goes from the inside to the outside of our network and vice
versa.
And from there, we can get information
about the source and destination IP addresses associated
with those traffic flows.
We can see what port numbers are being used.
And we can see what the firewall does with those traffic flows.
Does the firewall allow the traffic flow to proceed?
Or is that traffic flow blocked on the firewall?
If you're using a Next Generation Firewall, or NGFW,
you can also get information about the applications
that are in use.
These next generation firewalls are also
very good at providing feedback on URLs
or URL categories that are being used.
And they may also be able to point us
to suspicious data or any anomalies
with the information within these traffic flows.
Here's a view of firewall logs from a next generation
firewall.
Each one of these lines is a separate flow
of traffic traversing the network.
Each one of these traffic flows contains the time and date
of the traffic flow, the source IP address,
and in the case of this firewall,
the MAC address that received that data.
You can also see the destination IP
address and the application that is used for this traffic flow.
And then you finally get to see the disposition, or result
of this traffic flow whether it was
accepted through the firewall or whether it was blocked.
The applications that we use can also
create log files that may be very useful when
analyzing security events.
This might include information from the Windows Event Viewer
log, specifically the application log
section of the Event Viewer.
If you're using Linux or Mac OS, you can look in the /var/log
directory.
And all of this information would probably
be rolled up into one single security information and event
manager, or SIEM.
And all of this information can then
be filtered out or viewed in different ways inside
of the SIEM itself.
You may not realize it, but the endpoint devices
you're using also contain a great deal of log detail.
If you're using a laptop, a desktop, a phone, a tablet,
or any other endpoint device, there
is an extensive amount of log information available.
For example, you may be able to view information on log
in and log off events.
Maybe there's information on system events or processes
running on that endpoint.
And there might be details about the management of the device,
such as password changes or lock outs.
And you can also view information
on any directory services.
All of these endpoint logs can also be rolled up to a SIEM
so that you can then parse out that data
and view different correlations between what's
happening on the endpoint, what's happening
on the network, and any other devices that you
may be monitoring.
Once you have all of this endpoint log
information in the SIEM, you can now
start comparing and correlating that data against log
file information from other devices.
So you can track each step of the way
for a particular traffic flow or a potential security event
inside of the SIEM, all by consolidating these log
files together into one single source.
There's also an extensive amount of security information stored
in the operating systems themselves.
Many operating systems keep a log
file associated with security events.
So you can monitor individual applications.
You can see if there are brute force attacks or any changes
to critical system files, and anything
relating to authentication is usually also stored
in these security log files.
This log file information inside the operating system
may be able to provide you with a heads up
of any type of security events.
For example, this log file might show that a particular service
was disabled.
And that service is not one that would normally be manually
disabled by the administrator.
That single log file event may cause a security alert
to be generated, and you may be able to stop a particular event
from occurring just by monitoring this log data.
As you can imagine, we are collecting a very large amount
of data across all of our systems.
And so we may not want to send all of our log information
into a SIEM, but instead, only send the information
that's important for us to be able to make security
decisions.
Another great place to gather information
is from IPS or IDS events.
This would be associated with intrusion prevention systems
or intrusion detection systems.
These days, we don't tend to use standalone IPS or IDS systems.
Instead, that functionality is often
built into a next generation firewall.
An IPS log is going to provide information
about known vulnerabilities or known types of attacks.
So it might look something like the log
file I've taken from an open source IPS called Snort.
In this IPS, we have a timestamp.
It shows us the class of the alert,
and it tells us that it's a possible denial
of service attack, specifically a SYN flood attack.
It has a priority inside the IPS of two.
It gives us a source IP address, a source port number,
and a destination IP address and destination port number.
We can now take all of these individual events
and also roll those up into our SIEM
so that we can now start extracting and correlating
this data with all of the other devices on our network.
There's also a great deal of log information
we can gather from our network infrastructure devices.
This might include our switches, our routers,
our wireless access points, or even VPN concentrators.
These log files can identify any changes
that might occur to any of our routing tables.
We might be able to identify authentication errors that
are occurring to someone trying to gain access to a switch
or to a router.
And we might also be able to identify
other types of attacks that are occurring on the network.
For example, in this log, we can see
there is an informational entry that
shows a TCP SYN attack was identified on port gigabit
eight.
And we can see that the TCP SYN traffic destined
to the local system has been automatically blocked
for 60 seconds.
Sometimes, you can gather important information
that is contained within the documents that were
transferring over the network.
Stored inside of the documents that we are often
creating in our word processors, our spreadsheets, our graphics
programs, and others is information that
describes that particular file.
For example, if you're reading an email in your email client,
you don't often see the large amount of metadata
that's stored within the header of that email.
But if you ask your email client to show you the entire email
document, you can often see information
that's hidden within the email headers, things
such as the servers that sent the email or the addresses that
were specified as the destination.
You can also see this if you look
at the description of pictures taken with a mobile device.
You may be able to tell what mobile device was used
and even information about the GPS
coordinates that were associated with this location
of the picture.
There's even metadata in the browsers that we're using,
things like the operating system that we're using,
the browser type, or the IP address that you're using.
And if you look at the metadata that's inside
of a word processing document or a spreadsheet,
you may find information on the person that
created that document, their address, their phone number,
and perhaps their title.
To give you an idea of what some of this metadata
might look like, let's look at the header of an email message.
You can see there is extensive information
in this email header including the IP addresses
that this message was received by.
We can see SPF information, other details about signatures
and information that can help you determine where this email
message originated, and the process
that it used to be transferred into your inbox.
If you're performing vulnerability scans
on your network, then you're creating an extensive amount
of log information.
This is going to give you details
about what this vulnerability scam was able to identify.
For example, it may identify devices
on your network that don't have a firewall configured.
There may be no antivirus on that device or anti-spyware.
And we're able to identify that in the logs
of our vulnerability scans.
We might also be able to identify
devices that are misconfigured.
For example, there may be shares that
are available that you can access
without using any type of username or password.
Or perhaps there's an operating system
that has the guest access turned on when
the best practice for your organization
might be to completely disable all guest accounts.
And of course, once you update the signatures inside
of your vulnerability scanner, it
can identify any operating systems or applications
which may have known vulnerabilities
that need to be patched.
Here's a summary of the results from a vulnerability scan.
This log information shows that there are certain operating
systems that were running on our network that are currently
unsupported.
And there might even be NFS shares
that are on our network that are readable by anyone
in the world.
As you've probably seen already, there
is an extensive amount of log information
that you would need to go through
to be able to find details hidden within all of this data.
Fortunately, most SIEMs have the ability
to create a set of automated reports.
This may be a feature that is built into the SIEM itself,
or you may be able to use a third party report
generator to simply access the information that is currently
stored in the SIEM.
Of course, these reports aren't very valuable
unless someone actually reads them.
And one stumbling block that many organizations will find
is they will create these automated reports,
but then simply ignore them when they arrive in their inbox.
This might also take a bit of finesse
to be able to find the right mix between the type of report
that you need and the amount of time
that it takes to create that report.
When you have a SIEM that may contain terabytes and terabytes
of data, it may take an extensive amount
of processing power just to create a single report.
So you may need to be very specific about the reports
that you'd like to generate so that you can create them
as efficiently as possible.
Instead of waiting for a day or two
to receive reports that are generated by the SIEM,
it might be useful to have a summary of information
that you could view at a glance.
This is often available through a dashboard.
Many SIEM and other security devices
allow you to customize a screen, containing
information that will be important to review
at a glance.
These dashboards may be customizable,
or there might be predefined dashboards
built into the SIEM itself.
This is often the type of data that's
useful to see at a glance or on the main screen
of your security operations center.
This commonly doesn't show long-term information primarily
because it takes such a long amount of time
to be able to compile all of that data together.
The dashboard is designed to give you something
that you can view instantly and get an understanding of how
the current status might be.
For example, you can see a breakdown of the system itself,
any active firewall rules, you can
see warnings that have come through,
and information about users and devices
that might be on the network.
One of the best places to gather data on your network
is from the network itself.
Being able to analyze the packets going over the network
can give you a great deal of insight into the operations
of the networking equipment, the applications, and any security
issues.
This may require that you use a third party
utility, such as the Wireshark utility that we see here.
This may be able to provide you with the ability
to capture data that's running across the wired network
and the wireless network.
And in some cases, devices like switches, routers, or firewalls
may have the ability to capture packets inside
of those devices themselves.
These captures give us detailed information about traffic flows
at the packet level.
Everything going across the network is captured,
and that allows us to analyze every bit and byte that's
transferred over the network.
The Wireshark summary view here in the top pane
shows a packet by packet breakdown of everything that's
being sent over the network.
You can see the highlighted frame is one that's
being sent as HTTP traffic.
And you can see the GET command is written inside of the packet
capture itself.
You can then see all of the following packets that
describe the transfer of this file that was requested
with the GET command.
The bottom half of the screen is the detail pane.
This provides us with a breakdown
of everything highlighted in that single frame
at the top of the page.
In this case, we can see the ethernet data.
We can see what's involved in the IPv4 header.
We have details about the TCP header.
And then we have the HTTP data itself
being shown all in that detail view.
浏览更多相关视频
CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 Course - 4.9 Use Data Sources to Support an Investigation.
Logs and Monitoring - N10-008 CompTIA Network+ : 3.1
Uncovering Cyber Threats: EDR vs SIEM Comparison #cybersecurity #cyber #risk #threats #detective
Network Services - CompTIA A+ 220-1101 - 2.4
What is a Firewall?
CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 Course - 4.5 Modify Enterprise Capabilities to Enhance Security
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)