In This Section: |
Use the Policy tab to configure and customize the events that define the SmartEvent Event Policy.
SmartEvent is constantly taking data from your Log Servers, and searching for patterns within all the network chatter that enters your system.
Depending on the levels set within each Event Definition, the number of events detected can be quite high. Yet only a portion of those events may be meaningful. By modifying the thresholds and other criteria that make up an event, you can reduce the number of false alarms.
These modifications are done in the Event Definitions. A high-level view of the process of modifying Event Definitions is as follows:
The Selector tree is divided into two branches: Event Policy and General Settings. The events detectable by SmartEvent are organized by category in the Event Policy branch. Select an event definition to show its configurable properties in the Detail pane, and a description of the event in the Description pane. Clear the property to remove this event type from the Event Policy the next time the Event Policy is installed.
The General Settings branch contains Initial Settings. For example: To define SmartEvent Correlation Unit, which is typically used for the initial configuration. Click a General Settings item to show its configurable properties in the Detail pane.
For details on specified attacks or events, refer to the Event Definition Detail pane.
When an event definition is selected, its configurable elements appear in the Detail pane, and a description of the event is displayed in the Description pane. There are generally six types of configurable elements:
Not all of these elements appear for every Event Definition. After installing and running SmartEvent for a short time, you will discover which of these elements need to be fine-tuned per Event Definition. For more about fine-tuning Event Definitions, see Configurable Elements of Event Definitions.
The configurable settings are straight-forward for the General Settings items. Adding a Time Object opens a window to set the appropriate hours and days of the week. For configuration information regarding most objects in General Settings, see System Administration.
The Event Threshold allows you to modify the limits that, when exceeded, indicates that an event has occurred. The limits typically are the number of connections, logs, or failures, and the period of time in which they occurred. It appears thus:
Detect the event when more than x connections/logs/failures (etc.) were detected over a period of y seconds.
To decreasing the number of false alarms based on a particular event, increase the number of connections, logs or failures and/or the period of time for them to occur.
An event severity affects in which queries (among those that filter for severity) this type of event will appear.
To modify the severity of an event, select a severity level from the drop-down list.
When detected, an event can activate an Automatic Reaction. The SmartEvent administrator can create and configure one Automatic Reaction, or many, according to the needs of the system.
For example: A Mail Reaction can be defined to tell the administrator of events to which it is applied. Multiple Automatic Mail Reactions can be created to tell a different responsible party for each type of event.
To create an automatic reaction:
These are the types of Automatic Reactions:
You can send event fields in the SNMP Trap message. The format for such an event field is [seam_event_table_field]
. This list represents the possible seam_event table fields:
AdditionalInfo varchar(1024)
AutoReactionStatus varchar(1024)
Category varchar(1024)
DetectedBy integer
DetectionTime integer
Direction integer
DueDate integer
EndTime integer
EventNumber integer
FollowUp integer
IsLast integer
LastUpdateTime integer
MaxNumOfConnections integer
Name varchar(1024) ,NumOfAcceptedConnections integer
NumOfRejectedConnections integer
NumOfUpdates integer
ProductCategory varchar(1024)
ProductName varchar(1024)
Remarks varchar(1024)
RuleID varchar(48)
Severity integer
StartTime integer
State integer
TimeInterval integer
TotalNumOfConnections varchar(20)
User varchar(1024)
Uuid varchar(48)
aba_customer varchar(1024)
jobID varchar(48)
policyRuleID varchar(48)
These sections tell how to add an Automatic Reaction to an event:
You can create Automatic reaction from:
The first step for each of the next procedures assumes that you are at one of the starting points above.
Note - the Subject field has the default variables of [EventNumber] - [Severity] - [Name]. These variables automatically adds to the mail subject the event number, severity and name of the event that triggered this reaction. These variables can be removed at your discretion.
The command send_snmp
uses values that are found in the file chkpnnt.mib, in the directory $CPDIR/lib/snmp/
. An OID value used in the SNMP Trap parameters window must be defined in chkpnnt.mib, or in a file that refers it. If the OID field is left blank, the value is determined from iso.org.dod.internet.private.enterprises.checkpoint.products.fw.fwEvent = 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.11.
When the automatic reaction occurs, the SNMP Trap is sent as a 256 byte DisplayString
text. But, if the OID type is not text, the message is not sent.
To add an External Script:
$RTDIR/bin
, create the folder ext_commands
. Run:mkdir $RTDIR/bin/ext_commands
$RTDIR/bin/ext_commands/
or in a folder under that location. The path and script name must not contain any spaces.chmod +x <script_filename>
$RTDIR/bin/ext_commands/
directory. Use the relative path if needed. Do not specify the full path of $RTDIR/bin/ext_commands/
.Guidelines for creating the script
To refer to the event in the script, define this environment variable:
EVENT=$(cat)
and use $EVENT
Use line editor commands like awk
or sed
to parse the event and refer to specific fields. You can print the $EVENT
one time to see its format.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The format of the event content is a name-value set – a structured set of fields that have the form:
(name: value ;* );
where name is a string and value is either free text until a semicolon, or a nested name-value set.
The following is a sample event:
(Name: Check Point administrator credential guessing; RuleID:
{F182D6BC-A0AA-444a-9F31-C0C22ACA2114}; Uuid:
<42135c9c,00000000,2e1510ac,131c07b6>; NumOfUpdates: 0; IsLast: 0;
StartTime: 16Feb2015 16:45:45; EndTime: Not Completed; DetectionTime:
16Feb2015 16:45:48; LastUpdateTime: 0; TimeInterval: 600;
MaxNumOfConnections: 3; TotalNumOfConnections: 3; DetectedBy: 2886735150;
Origin: (IP: 192.0.2.4; repetitions: 3; countryname: United States;
hostname: theHost) ; ProductName: SmartDashboard; User: XYZ; Source:
(hostname: theHost; repetitions: 3; IP: 192.0.2.4; countryname: United
States) ; Severity: Critical; EventNumber: EN00000184; State: 0;
NumOfRejectedConnections: 0; NumOfAcceptedConnections: 0) ;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you need to refer to more fields, you can add them to the event:
You can add an Automatic Reaction for SmartEvent to run when this type of event is detected.
Working Hours are used to detect unauthorized attempts to access protected systems and other forbidden operations after-hours. To set the Regular Working Hours for an event, select a Time Object that you have configured from the drop-down list.
To create a Time Object:
To assign a Time Object to an event:
Exclusions remove log entries from query results according to defined criteria (query properties). For example, if source 10.10.10.1 is defined as an exclusion for an event, all events with source 10.10.10.1 do not show in the query result. Global Exclusions work in the same way, except they apply to all events.
You can add exclusions in one of these ways:
To manually add an exclusion:
If you do not see the host object listed, you may need to create it in SmartEvent.
You can change or delete existing exclusions by selecting Edit or Remove, respectively.
Exceptions allow an event to be independently configured for the sources or destinations that appear. For example, if the event Port Scan from Internal Network is set to detect an event when 30 port scans have occurred within 60 seconds, you can also define that two port scans detected from host A in 10 seconds of each other is also an event.
To manually add an exception, under the heading Apply the following exceptions, click Add and select the Source and/or Destination of the object to apply different criteria for this event.
Note - If you do not see the host object listed, you may need to create it in SmartEvent. |
To modify or delete existing exceptions, select Edit or Remove, respectively.
To create a user-defined event you must have knowledge of the method by which SmartEvent identifies events. This section starts with a high level overview of how logs are analyzed to conclude if an event occurs or occurred.
Events are detected by the SmartEvent Correlation Unit. The SmartEvent Correlation Unit scans logs for criteria that match an Event Definition.
SmartEvent uses these procedures to identify these events:
When the SmartEvent Correlation Unit reads a log, it first checks if the log matches all defined Global Exclusions. Global Exclusions (defined on the Policy tab > Event Policy > Global Exclusions) direct SmartEvent to ignore logs that are not expected to contribute to an event.
If the log matches a Global Exclusion, it is discarded by the system. If not, the SmartEvent Correlation Unit starts to match it against each Event Definition.
Each Event Definition contains a filter which is comprised of a number of criteria that must be found in all matching logs. The criteria are divided by product: The Event Definition can include a number of different products, but each product has its own criterion.
To match the Event Definition "A", a log from Endpoint Security must match the Action, Event Type, Port, and Protocol values listed in the Endpoint Security column. A log from a Security Gateway must match the values listed in its column.
SmartEvent divides this procedure into two steps. The SmartEvent Correlation Unit first checks if the Product value in the log matches one of the permitted Product values of an Event Definition.
If Log 1 did not contain a permitted Product value, the SmartEvent Correlation Unit compares the log against Event Definition "B", and so on. If the log fails to match against an Event Definition, it is discarded.
The SmartEvent Correlation Unit checks if the log contains the Product-specific criteria to match the Event Definition. For example: The product Endpoint Security generates logs that involve the Firewall, Spyware, Malicious Code Protection, and others. The log contains this information in the field Event Type. If an event is defined to match on Endpoint Security logs with the event type Firewall, an Endpoint Security log with Event Type "Spyware" fails against the Event Definition filter. Other criteria can be specified to the Product.
In our example, Log 1 matched Event Definition "A" with a permitted product value. The SmartEvent Correlation Unit examines if the log contains the necessary criteria for an Endpoint Security log to match.
If the criteria do not match, the SmartEvent Correlation Unit continues to compare the log criteria to other event definitions.
When a log matches the criteria, it is added to an Event Candidate. Event candidates let SmartEvent track logs until an event threshold is crossed, at which point an event is generated.
Notes -
Each Event Definition can have multiple event candidates, each of which keeps track of logs grouped by equivalent properties. In the figure above the logs that create the event candidate have a common source value. They were dropped, blocked or rejected by a Firewall. They are grouped together because the Event Definition is designed to detect this type of activity, that originates from one source.
When a log matches the event definition, but has properties different than those of the existing event candidates, a new event candidate is created. This event candidate is added to what can be thought of as the Event Candidate Pool.
Note - SmartEvent creates a new event candidate for a log with a different source.
To illustrate more, an event defined detects a high rate of blocked connections. SmartEvent tracks the number of blocked connections for each Firewall, and the logs of the blocked traffic at each Firewall forms an event candidate. When the threshold of blocked connection logs from a Firewall is surpassed, that Firewall event candidate becomes an event. While this Event Definition creates one event candidate for each Firewall monitored, other Event Definitions can create many more.
The Event Candidate Pool is a dynamic environment, with new logs added and older logs discarded when they have exceeded an Event Definition time threshold.
When a candidate becomes an event, the SmartEvent Correlation Unit forwards the event to the Event Database. But to discover an event does not mean that SmartEvent stops to track logs related to it. The SmartEvent Correlation Unit adds matching logs to the event as long as they continue to arrive during the event threshold. To keep the event open condenses what can appear as many instances of the same event to one, and provides accurate, up-to-date information as to the start and end time of the event.
To create New Event Definitions, right-click an existing Event Definition, or use the Actions menu:
Right Click |
Actions Menu |
Description |
---|---|---|
New |
New Custom Event |
Launches the Event Definition Wizard, which allows you to select how to base the event: on an existing Event Definition, or from scratch. |
Save As |
Save Event As |
Creates an Event Definition based on the properties of the highlighted Event Definition. When you select Save As, the system prompts you to save the selected Event Definition with a new name for later editing. Save As can also be accessed from the Properties window. |
All User Defined Events are saved at Policy tab > Event Policy > User Defined Events. When an Event Definition exists it can be modified through the Properties window, available by right-click and from the Actions menu.
To create a User Defined Event based on an existing event:
The Event Definition Wizard opens.
Click Next.
Click Next.
Click Next.
Select the field(s) by which distinct Event Candidates will be created allows you to set the field (or set of fields) that are used to differentiate between Event Candidates.
To edit a user-defined event:
This screen defines how SmartEvent counts logs related to this event.
When an event is generated, information about the event is presented in the Event Detail pane.
This screen lets you specify if the information will be added to the detailed pane and from which Log Field the information is taken.
You can clear it in the Display column. The Event Field will not be populated.
All events can be configured. This screen lets you select the configuration parameters that show.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide additional assistance in reducing false positives.
Some types of services are characterized by a high quantity of traffic that can be misidentified as events. These are examples of services and protocols that can potentially generate events:
The information in this table provides a list of server types where high activity is frequently used. To change the Event Policy, adjust event thresholds and add Exclusions for servers and services . You can decrease more the quantity of false positives detected.
Common events by service
Server Type |
Category |
Event Name |
Source |
Dest |
Service |
Reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SNMP |
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
Any |
Any |
SNMP-read |
Hosts that query other hosts |
DNS Servers |
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
DNS servers |
- |
DNS |
Inter-DNS servers updates |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
DNS servers |
DNS |
DNS requests and inter-DNS servers updates |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
Any |
DNS |
DNS requests and inter-DNS servers updates |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network on service |
Any |
Any |
DNS |
DNS requests and inter-DNS servers updates |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
Any |
DNS |
DNS requests and inter-DNS servers updates |
NIS Servers |
Scans |
Port scan from internal network |
NIS servers |
Any |
- |
Multiple NIS queries |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
NIS servers |
NIS |
NIS queries |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
Any |
NIS |
NIS queries |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network on service |
Any |
Any |
NIS |
NIS queries |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
Any |
NIS |
NIS queries |
LDAP Servers |
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
LDAP servers |
LDAP |
LDAP requests |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
LDAP servers |
LDAP |
LDAP requests |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network on service |
Any |
LDAP servers |
LDAP |
LDAP requests |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
LDAP servers |
LDAP |
LDAP requests |
HTTP Proxy Servers - Hosts To Proxy Server |
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
Proxy servers |
HTTP:8080 |
Hosts connections to Proxy servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
Proxy servers |
HTTP:8080 |
Hosts connections to Proxy servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
Any |
Proxy servers |
HTTP:8080 |
Hosts connections to Proxy servers |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
Proxy servers |
HTTP:8080 |
Hosts connections to Proxy servers |
HTTP Proxy Servers - Out to the Web |
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
Proxy servers |
Any |
HTTP/ HTTPS |
Proxy servers connections out to various sites |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Proxy servers |
Any |
HTTP/ HTTPS |
Proxy servers connections out to various sites |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Proxy servers |
Any |
HTTP/ HTTPS |
Proxy servers connections out to various sites |
|
|
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
Proxy servers |
Any |
HTTP/ HTTPS |
Proxy servers connections out to various sites |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Proxy servers |
Any |
HTTP/ HTTPS |
Proxy servers connections out to various sites |
UFP Servers |
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
UFP servers |
Any/UFP by vendor |
Firewall connections to UFP servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
UFP servers |
Any/UFP by vendor |
Firewall connections to UFP servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
Any |
UFP servers |
Any/UFP by vendor |
Firewall connections to UFP servers |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
UFP servers |
Any/UFP by vendor |
Firewall connections to UFP servers |
CVP Servers Request |
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
CVP servers |
Any/CVP by vendor |
Firewall connections to CVP servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
CVP servers |
Any/CVP by vendor |
Firewall connections to CVP servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
Any |
CVP servers |
Any/CVP by vendor |
Firewall connections to CVP servers |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
CVP servers |
Any/CVP by vendor |
Firewall connections to CVP servers |
CVP Servers Replies |
Scans |
Port scans from internal network |
CVP servers |
Any |
- |
Multiple CVP replies to same GW |
|
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
CVP servers |
- |
CVP |
CVP replies to multiple GWs |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
CVP servers |
Any |
Any/CVP by vendor |
CVP replies |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
CVP servers |
Any |
Any/CVP by vendor |
CVP replies |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
CVP servers |
Any |
Any/CVP by vendor |
CVP replies |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
CVP servers |
Any |
Any/CVP by vendor |
CVP replies |
UA Server Request |
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
Any |
UA servers |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
Connections to UA servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
Any |
UA servers |
(TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
Connections to UA servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
Any |
UA servers |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
Connections to UA servers |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
Any |
UA servers |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
Connections to UA servers |
UA Servers Replies |
Scans |
Port scans from internal network |
UA servers |
Any |
- |
Multiple UA replies to the same computer |
|
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
UA servers |
Any |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
Multiple UA replies to multiple computers |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
UA servers |
Any |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
UA replies |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
UA servers |
Any |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
UA replies |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
UA servers |
Any |
uas-port (TCP:19191 TCP:19194) |
UA replies |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
UA servers |
Any |
uas-port (TCP:19191TCP:19194) |
UA replies |
SMTP Servers |
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
SMTP servers |
- |
SMTP |
SMTP servers connections out to various SMTP servers |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
SMTP servers |
Any |
SMTP |
SMTP servers connections out to various SMTP servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
SMTP servers |
Any |
SMTP |
SMTP servers connections out to various SMTP servers |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
SMTP servers |
Any |
SMTP |
SMTP servers connections out to various SMTP servers |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
SMTP servers |
Any |
SMTP |
SMTP servers connections out to various SMTP servers |
Anti-Virus Definition Servers |
Scans |
IP sweep from internal network |
AV_Defs servers |
- |
Any/AV by vendor |
Anti-Virus definitions updates deployment |
|
Denial of Service (DoS) |
High connection rate on internal host on service |
AV_Defs servers |
- |
Any/AV by vendor |
Anti-Virus definitions updates deployment |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal network |
AV_Defs servers |
- |
Any/AV by vendor |
Anti-Virus definitions updates deployment |
|
Anomalies |
High connection rate from internal hosts on service |
AV_Defs servers |
- |
Any/AV by vendor |
Anti-Virus definitions updates deployment |
|
Anomalies |
Abnormal activity on service |
AV_Defs servers |
- |
Any/AV by vendor |
Anti-Virus definitions updates deployment |