Alerts - Administrator Guide - Cortex XDR - Cortex - Security Operations

Cortex XDR Pro Administrator Guide

Product
Cortex XDR
License
Pro
Creation date
2024-07-16
Last date published
2024-10-14
Category
Administrator Guide
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Retiring
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Abstract

Learn more about the Alerts page in Cortex XDR.

The Alerts page consolidates all non-informational alerts from your detection sources This helps you efficiently triage the events you see each day. By analyzing an alert, you can better understand the cause of the alert, and take actions where required. The default alert retention period in Cortex XDR is 186 days.

To access the Alerts page, go to Incident ResponseIncidentsAlerts Table.

By default, the Alerts page displays the security alerts received over the last seven days. Every 12 hours, the system enforces a cleanup policy to remove the oldest alerts once the maximum limit is exceeded.

To see detailed information about an alert, click an alert to open the alert panel. To investigate further, from the alert panel click Investigate or Investigate Causality Chain.

Cortex XDR processes and displays the names of users in the following standardized format, also termed “normalized user”.

<company domain>\<username>

As a result, any alert triggered based on network, authentication, or login events displays the User Name in the standardized format in the Alerts and Incidents pages. This impacts every alert for Cortex XDR Analytics and Cortex XDR Analytics BIOC, including Correlation, BIOC, and IOC alerts triggered on one of these event types.

The following table describes both the default fields and additional optional fields that you can add to the alerts table using the column manager.

Field

Description

Status Indicator (

alert-status.png

)

Identifies whether there is enough endpoint data to analyze an alert.

check-box.png

Check box to select one or more alerts on which to perform actions. Select multiple alerts to assign all selected alerts to an analyst, or to change the status or severity of all selected alerts.

ACTION

Action taken by the alert sensor, either Detected or Prevented with action status displayed in parenthesis.

AGENT OS SUB TYPE

Operating system subtype of the agent from which the alert was triggered.

ALERT ID

Unique identifier that Cortex XDR assigns to each alert.

ALERT NAME

Module that triggered the alert. If the alert was generated by Cortex XDR , the Alert Name will be the specific Cortex XDR rule that created the alert (BIOC, IOC, or Correlation Rule name). If from an external system, it will carry the name assigned to it by Cortex XDR . Alerts that match an alert starring policy also display a purple star.

Note

For alerts coming from firewalls, if duplicate alerts with the same name and host are raised within 24 hours, they are aggregated and identified by a +n tag.

Alerts that contain a Featured Alert Field are displayed with featured-alert-field-flag.png flag.

Alerts associated with Identity Analytics are displayed with an Identity Analytics tag.

ALERT SOURCE

Source of the alert.

ALERT TRIGGERED AN AUTOMATION RULE

alert_automation_rule_thunder.JPG indicates that the alert triggered an automation rule.

APP-ID

Related App-ID for an alert. App-ID is a traffic classification system that determines what an application is irrespective of port, protocol, encryption (SSH or SSL) or any other evasive tactic used by the application. When known, you can also pivot to the Palo Alto Networks Applipedia entry that describes the detected application.

APP CATEGORY

APP-ID category name associated with a firewall alert.

APP SUBCATEGORY

APP-ID subcategory name associated with a firewall alert.

APP TECHNOLOGY

APP-ID technology name associated with a firewall alert.

CATEGORY

Alert category based on the alert source. An example of an Cortex XDR agent alert category is Exploit Modules. An example of a BIOC alert category is Evasion. If a URL filtering category is known, this field also displays the name of the URL filtering category.

CGO CMD

Command-line arguments of the Causality Group Owner.

CGO MD5

MD5 value of the CGO that initiated the alert.

CGO NAME

Name of the process that started the causality chain is based on Cortex XDR causality logic.

CGO SHA256

SHA256 value of the CGO that initiated the alert.

CGO SIGNATURE

Signing status of the CGO

CGO SIGNER

Name of the software publishing vendor that signed the file in the causality chain that led up to the alert.

Note

Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).

CLOUD IDENTITY TYPE

Classification is used to map the identity type that initiated an operation that triggered an alert. For example, Service, Application, and Temporary Credentials.

CLOUD IDENTITY SUB-TYPE

Specific classification of the identity initiated the operation. For example, for Identity Type: Temporary Credentials the subtype could be Assumed Role.

CLOUD OPERATION TYPE

Represents what has happened because of the identity operation. For example, Create, Delete, and Modify.

CLOUD PROJECT

Represents the cloud provider folders or projects. For example, AWS Accounts and Azure Subscriptions.

CLOUD PROVIDER

Name of the cloud provider where the alert occurred.

CLOUD REFERENCED RESOURCE

Represents the resources that are referenced in the alert log. In most cases, the referred resource will be where the operation was initiated on.

CLOUD RESOURCE TYPE

Classifications are used to map similar types of resources across different cloud providers. For example, EC2, Google Compute Engine, and Microsoft Compute are all mapped to Compute.

CLOUD RESOURCE SUB-TYPE

Specific classification is used to map the types of resources. For example, DISK, VPC, and Subnet are all mapped to Compute.

CONTAINS FEATURED HOST

Whether the alert includes a host name that has been flagged as a Featured Alert Field.

CONTAINS FEATURED USER

Whether the alert includes a user name that has been flagged as a Featured Alert Field.

CONTAINS FEATURED IP ADDRESS

Whether the alert includes an IP address name that has been flagged as a Featured Alert Field.

CID

Unique identifier of the causality instance generated by Cortex XDR .

DESCRIPTION

Text summary of the event including the alert source, alert name, severity, and file path. For alerts triggered by BIOC, IOC, and Correlation Rules, Cortex XDR displays detailed information about the rule.

DESTINATION ZONE NAME

Destination zone of the connection for firewall alerts.

DNS Query Name

Domain name is queried in the DNS request.

EMAIL RECIPIENT

Email recipient value of a firewall alerts triggered on the content of a malicious email.

EMAIL SENDER

Email sender value of a firewall alerts triggered on the content of a malicious email.

EMAIL SUBJECT

Email subject value of a firewall alerts triggered on the content of a malicious email.

EVENT TYPE

Type of event on which the alert was triggered.

EXCLUDED

Whether the alert is excluded by an exclusion configuration.

EXTERNAL ID

Alert ID as recorded in the detector from which this alert was sent.

FILE PATH

Path to the file on the endpoint, for alerts that are triggered on a file (the Event Type is File).

FILE MACRO SHA256

SHA256 hash value of a Microsoft Office file macro.

FILE MD5

MD5 hash value of the file.

FILE SHA256

SHA256 hash value of the file.

FW NAME

Name of firewall on which a firewall alert was raised.

FW RULE ID

Firewall rule ID that triggered the firewall alert.

FW RULE NAME

Firewall rule name that matches the network traffic that triggered the firewall alert.

FW SERIAL NUMBER

Serial number of the firewall that raised the firewall alert.

HOST

Hostname of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered. The hostname is generally available for XDR agent alerts or alerts that are stitched with EDR data. When the hostname is unknown, this field is blank.

HOST FQDN

Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the Windows endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.

HOST IP

IP address of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.

HOST IPv6

IPv6 address of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.

HOST MAC ADDRESS

MAC address of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.

HOST OS

Operating system of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.

INCIDENT ID

ID of any incident that includes the alert.

INITIATED BY

Name of the process that initiated an activity such as a network connection or registry change.

INITIATOR MD5

MD5 value of the process which initiated the alert.

INITIATOR SHA256

SHA256 hash value of the initiator.

INITIATOR CMD

Command-line used to initiate the process including any arguments.

INITIATOR SIGNATURE

Signing status of the process that initiated the activity.

INITIATOR PATH

Path of the initiating process.

INITIATOR PID

Process ID (PID) of the initiating process.

INITIATOR SIGNER

Signer of the process that triggered the alert.

Note

Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).

INITIATOR TID

Thread ID (TID) of the initiating process.

IS PHISHING

Whether a firewall alert is classified as phishing.

LOCAL IP

IP address of the host that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on network activity (the Event Type is Network Connection).

LOCAL PORT

Port on the endpoint that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on network activity (the Event Type is Network Connection).

MAC ADDRESS

MAC address on which the alert was triggered.

MISC

Miscellaneous information about the alert.

MITRE ATT&CK TACTIC

Type of MITRE ATT&CK tactic on which the alert was triggered.

MITRE ATT&CK TECHNIQUE

Type of MITRE ATT&CK technique and sub‑technique on which the alert was triggered.

MODULE

For Cortex XDR agent alerts, this field identifies the protection module that triggered the alert.

NGFW VSYS NAME

Name of the virtual system for the Palo Alto Networks firewall that triggered an alert.

OS PARENT CREATED BY

Name of the parent operating system that created the alert.

OS PARENT CMD

Command line used by the parent operating system to initiate the process including any arguments.

OS PARENT SIGNATURE

Signing status of the operating system of the activity.

OS PARENT SIGNER

Parent operating system signer.

Note

Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).

OS PARENT SH256

Parent operating system SHA256 hash value.

OS PARENT ID

Parent operating system ID.

OS PARENT PID

OS parent process ID.

OS PARENT TID

OS parent thread ID.

OS PARENT USER NAME

Name of the user associated with the parent operating system.

PHONE NUMBER

Shows the phone number that triggered the alert. This is the number that sent a malicious URL/spam or was blocked.

PROCESS EXECUTION SIGNATURE

Signature status of the process that triggered the alert.

PROCESS EXECUTION SIGNER

Signer of the process that triggered the alert.

Note

Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).

REGISTRY DATA

Registry data that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on registry modifications (the Event Type is Registry).

REGISTRY FULL KEY

Full registry key that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on registry modifications (the Event Type is Registry).

REMOTE HOST

Remote host name that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on network activity (the Event Type is Network Connection).

REMOTE IP

Remote IP address of a network operation that triggered the alert.

REMOTE PORT

Remote port of a network operation that triggered the alert.

RESOLUTION STATUS

Status that was assigned to this alert when it was triggered (or modified). Right-click an alert to change the status. If you set the status to Resolved, select a resolution reason, for more information see Resolution Reasons for Incidents and Alerts.

Any update made to an alert impacts the associated incident. An incident with all its associated alerts marked as resolved is automatically set to Auto-Resolved. Cortex XDR continues to group alerts to an Auto-Resolved Incident for up to six hours. In the case where an alert is triggered during this duration, Cortex XDR re-opens the incident.

RULE ID

ID that matches the rule that triggered the alert.

SEVERITY

Severity that was assigned to this alert when it was triggered (or modified).

For BIOC, IOCs, and Correlation Rules, you define the severity when you create the rule. Insights are low and informational severity alerts that do not raise incidents but provide additional details when investigating an event.

STARRED

Whether the alert is starred by starring configuration.

SOURCE ZONE NAME

Source zone name of the connection for firewall alerts.

TAGS

Displays one or more of the following categories, which is used to filter the results according to the selected tag:

  • Asset Roles

  • Data Sources

  • Detector Tags

  • Endpoint Groups / Endpoint Tags —

    Displays the tag family and the corresponding tags. If SBAC is enabled, the user can view and manage the alerts table according the user's scope settings.

    Note

    When viewing alerts as a scoped user when a tenant is set to permissive mode, the user can view the alert but not have access to entities outside their scope.

    When viewing alerts as a scoped user when a tenant is set to restrictive mode, the alert content is not visible. The user can send the alert ID to the administrator to add to the user scope so the user can view the alert.

TARGET FILE SHA256

SHA256 hash value of an external DLL file that triggered the alert.

TARGET PROCESS CMD

Command line of the process whose creation triggered the alert.

TARGET PROCESS NAME

Name of the process whose creation triggered the alert.

TARGET PROCESS SHA256

SHA256 value of the process whose creation triggered the alert.

TIMESTAMP

Date and time when the alert was triggered.

Right-click to show rows 30 days prior or 30 days after the selected timestamp field value.

URL

URL destination address of the domain triggering the firewall alert.

USER NAME

Name of the user that initiated the behavior that triggered the alert. If the user is a domain user account, this field also identifies the domain.

Any alert triggered based on network, authentication, or login events, displays the User Name in the follow standardized format in the Alerts and Incidents pages.

<company domain>\<username>

XFF

X-Forwarded-For value from the HTTP header of the IP address connecting with a proxy.