[Oisf-users] Discrepancies in Snort and Suricata alerts

Thu Oct 4 13:42:13 UTC 2018

Hi Amar,

There were some important driving factors to move towards Suricata from
Snort:

~ Snort doesn't have really good support for output plugins. Snort is stand
alone software just to run and produce alerts ,
you need third party software support to work together with snort, like for
rule parsing PulledPork (which works great and is well maintained).
Unfortunately the output plugins are VERY outdated and no support is
offered for barnyard, and it's SUPER outdated. Suricata on the other hand
comes with
Suricata update built-in for rule pulling/parsing and have great support of
output plugins as well (no need for any third party software).
~ There are some features in Suricata that are not present in snort, like
file extraction, which is done currently by our Bro sensors but required
good amount of customization.
~ Every now and then barnyard spits many DB errors which really have to be
manually dealt with, again no support from barnyard folks :(
~ Lastly even though snort is single threaded, we run 11 different
processes individually on our sensor with pf_ring to get the
"multi-threaded" kind of functionality out of it, and all those
have to be restarted every time we pull new rules, which is kind of sad.
~ We have done many customization for snort to work the way we want to,
again the output plugins is something I personality feel is a big turn off
for me. Who knows how many
vulnerabilities lie in, for example, the barnyard code, since it hasn't
been updated over years, maybe a decade almost.

Hope this helps answering your question.

Fatema.

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 11:46 PM Amar <amar at countersnipe.com> wrote:

> Hello Fatema
>
> I see your comment about contuing to use Snort! If Snort works for you
> anyway, may I ask what factors are driving you to look at/use Suricata in
> the first place?
>
> Regards
> Amar Rathore
> CounterSnipe Systems LLC
>
>
> On Oct 3, 2018 at 6:57 PM, <fatema bannatwala
> <fatema.bannatwala at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Yet another example where no alerts fired in Suricata but in Snort for
> legit bad traffic for "Andromeda" Trojan.
>
> Both the suri and snort signatures for sid:2809682 are same, and yet only
> snort triggered the alert for an outbound POST request to a domain related
> to Andromeda Trojan.
> Bro detected those connections as http, hence the application should be
> recognized by Suricata as http.
>
> Bro http log for the connection that triggered snort alert:
> 10/2/18 7:06:46.734 PM  CGOaPc2Kyn0xd3eGkd 128.x.x.x   58299
>  184.105.192.2   80   1   POST atomictrivia.ru /atomic.php - 1.1
> Mozilla/4.0 64 0 200 OK - - (empty) - - - FUR4T54aQNbHsxbG84
>
> Snort alert for the same:
> Oct 2 19:06:47 snort[3664]: [1:2809682:3] ETPRO TROJAN Andromeda/Gamarue
> Checkin [Classification: A Network Trojan was Detected] [Priority: 1]:
> {TCP} 128.x.x.x:58299 -> 184.105.192.2:80
>
> No Suricata alerts fired for the same.
>
> The notification of this activity was sent by a third party to us today,
> hence we are sure that the host is compromised as it was trying to resolve
> Andromeda domains.
>
> I can't capture the pcap for the traffic that triggers snort alerts but
> not Suri, as it is sporadic, and only couple of minutes of traffic capture
> results in gigs of traffic, hence I can't just keep running pcap capture
> for a long period of time on the sensors.
> If I can't figure out what is going on with Suri not firing the alerts,
> then we just might have to drop Suricata deployment in prod and keep
> working with Snort.
>
> Any pointers/suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
> Fatema.
> Event Actions
> <https://setter.nss.udel.edu:8443/en-US/app/search/search?q=search%20index%3Dmalware%20128.4.73.143&sid=1538571855.42311&display.page.search.mode=smart&dispatch.sample_ratio=1&earliest=-24h%40h&latest=now#>
>
> On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 12:05 PM fatema bannatwala <
> fatema.bannatwala at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I tried to capture some traffic, but those pcaps aren't triggering any
>> alerts in both snort and suricata, have to work on getting some pcap with
>> some traffic that would be malicious and could trigger alerts.
>> Meanwhile, was looking into the alerts that were triggered in Snort and
>> not in Suricata for last 15 minutes on live servers, and did the following
>> analysis:
>>
>> Example of few alerts triggered in snort but not in suricata: sid:
>> 2022813, 2008974, 2009714
>> when I looked at the above alert rules defined in ET ruleset for snort
>> and ET ruleset for suricata,
>> the only major difference found is in the protocol defined in both
>> alerts, i.e. :
>>
>> suricata alert 2022813 definition:
>> alert *http* $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (msg:"ET MALWARE
>> SearchProtect PUA User-Agent Observed"; flow:established,to_server;
>> content:"SearchProtect|3b|";
>> depth:14; http_user_agent;
>> reference:md5,34e2350c2ed6a9a9e9d444102ae4dd87; classtype:trojan-activity;
>> sid:2022813; rev:2; metadata:created_at 2016_05_17, updated_at 2016_05_17;)
>>
>> snort alert 2022813 definition:
>> alert *tcp* $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET $HTTP_PORTS (msg:"ET MALWARE
>> SearchProtect PUA User-Agent Observed"; flow:established,to_server;
>> content:"User-Agent|3a 20|SearchProtect|3b|";
>> fast_pattern; http_header;
>> reference:md5,34e2350c2ed6a9a9e9d444102ae4dd87; classtype:trojan-activity;
>> sid:2022813; rev:1; metadata:created_at 2016_05_17, updated_at 2016_05_17;)
>>
>> And from snort alert logs, the packet content that triggered that 2022813
>> alert:
>>
>> [1:2022813:1] ET MALWARE SearchProtect PUA User-Agent Observed
>> 2018-09-25 11:09:39.337000-04:00 128.164.63.89:51872 -> 54.243.209.194:80
>> TCP: Data Triggering Snort Rule: POST / HTTP/1.1::~~Content-Type:
>> application/json::~~Accept: */*::~~User-Agent:
>> SearchProtect;3.0.50.0;Microsoft Windows 7
>> Enterprise;SPC0AFF85F-9E31-44AC-8E1C-61C39CDE89DC::~~Host:
>> sp-alive-msg.databssint.com::~~Content-Length: 2157::~~Connection:
>> Keep-Alive::~~Cache-Control: no-cache::~~::~~
>> [Xref => md5 34e2350c2ed6a9a9e9d444102ae4dd87]
>>
>> Hence, looking at the contents of the above data triggering log, looks
>> like it matches the Suricata rule signature as well, except not sure if the
>> protocol detected was actually http or not, and hence Suricata alert might
>> not have trigged for the same content.
>> Other alerts that weren't triggered in Suricata were also having "http"
>> in place of "tcp" in the rule signatures, when compared with snort rule
>> signatures. Hence my guess is Suricata isn't able to detect http protocol
>> for the same traffic and hence not triggering the alerts.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fatema.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 12:13 AM Michał Purzyński <
>> michalpurzynski1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It would be really useful to have some data we could work on. You can
>>> always share pcaps with developers only, subject to your company's policy.
>>>
>>> One more thing you could do without sharing traffic is to verify if
>>> these cases when snort matches a signature A and Suricata does not, it is a
>>> false positive or a true positive.
>>>
>>> That would be a great start.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 2:59 PM fatema bannatwala <
>>> fatema.bannatwala at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hmm, makes sense, was just curious to know what happens when snort
>>>> ruleset was fed to Suricata,
>>>> and to produce a baseline for the initial test environment to see if
>>>> the important alerts are not missed by Suricata once deployed in prod.
>>>> Hence was trying to keep the rulesets same for both for an even
>>>> comparison..
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>> Fatema.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 4:29 PM Michael Shirk <shirkdog.bsd at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The issue is that the engines are different, so Snort signatures from
>>>>> VRT/Talos, even ET-Pro written for the Snort detection engine are only
>>>>> tested with Snort. There was a good presentation by Dave Wharton at
>>>>> SuriCon 2016 about the subtle differences that can cause signatures
>>>>> written for either engine to not work in the other. Digging into the
>>>>> specifics of a signature that works in Snort but does not work in
>>>>> Suricata may highlight a similar issue.
>>>>>
>>>>> At least from what I have seen, similar to the issue you had with
>>>>> pulledpork using a Snort signature set with a Suricata signature set,
>>>>> I believe the user base selects one detection engine over the other.
>>>>> The community will send emails with new detections that can end up in
>>>>> the emerging threats signatures, as well as the community based Snort
>>>>> rules, but specific to one of the engines.
>>>>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 4:18 PM fatema bannatwala
>>>>> <fatema.bannatwala at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Hmm, don't want to start Suricata in IPS mode, as it's configured to
>>>>> sniff traffic through a tap and should really be running as an IDS.
>>>>> > Not sure if the triggering of alerts would depend on mode though,
>>>>> but I might be wrong..
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 3:41 PM Albert Whale <
>>>>> Albert.Whale at it-security-inc.com> wrote:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> So what happens if you start Suricata in IPS Mode?
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> On 9/24/18 2:17 PM, fatema bannatwala wrote:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Hi Albert,
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> I am running Suricata in IDS mode.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Thanks,
>>>>> >> Fatema.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 2:11 PM Albert E Whale <
>>>>> Albert.Whale at it-security-inc.com> wrote:
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>> Hi Fatema,
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>> I’m curious, are running Suricata in IDS or IPS mode?
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>> I am experiencing significant issues with IPS on a small home
>>>>> office environment.
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>> > On Sep 24, 2018, at 1:26 PM, fatema bannatwala <
>>>>> fatema.bannatwala at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > Hi All,
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > I am working on getting Suricata up and running with same
>>>>> rulesets as we have for snort.
>>>>> >>> > Hence running Suricata with both VRT open source free ruleset
>>>>> from Cisco as well as with ET-PRO rule sets from Proofpoint for
>>>>> suricatav4.0.4.
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > When I start Suricata it gives some errors for around 200 VRT
>>>>> rules concerning Invalid_Signature/Unknown_Keyword, which make sense as
>>>>> they are not designed to be run with Suricata. But Suricata starts up
>>>>> correctly and works fine inspite of those rule errors.
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > My concern is, the number of unique alerts that get triggered in
>>>>> Snort are more than the unique alerts triggered in Suricata, even though
>>>>> both are getting same traffic flow. The difference is huge, i.e. 241 unique
>>>>> Snort alerts compared to only 94 unique alerts in Suricata.
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > When did an analysis, the difference is between ETPRO alerts as
>>>>> well as VRT alerts that are triggered in both. And confirmed that the sids
>>>>> that are getting triggered in snort are also enabled in suricata, but still
>>>>> no suricata alerts for those sids.
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > Hence, my question is why there is this discrepancy in the
>>>>> alerts that get triggered in snort and not in suricata even when they both
>>>>> are seeing the same traffic and have same sids enabled?
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > P.S My initial thought was, either it's because of capture loss
>>>>> in suricata (which is <0.1%), or maybe because of some of those
>>>>> incompatible VRT alerts that are enabled in Suricata, and it is not able to
>>>>> work correctly because of those.
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > Has anyone tried this kind on config before?
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > Thanks,
>>>>> >>> > Fatema.
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > _______________________________________________
>>>>> >>> > Suricata IDS Users mailing list:
>>>>> oisf-users at openinfosecfoundation.org
>>>>> >>> > Site: http://suricata-ids.org | Support:
>>>>> http://suricata-ids.org/support/
>>>>> >>> > List:
>>>>> https://lists.openinfosecfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/oisf-users
>>>>> >>> >
>>>>> >>> > Conference: https://suricon.net
>>>>> >>> > Trainings: https://suricata-ids.org/training/
>>>>> >>>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> --
>>>>> >> --
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Albert E. Whale, CEH CHS CISA CISSP
>>>>> >> President - Chief Security Officer
>>>>> >> IT Security, Inc. - A Service Disabled Veteran Owned Company -
>>>>> (SDVOSB)
>>>>> >> HUBZone Certified
>>>>> >> LinkedIn Profile
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Phone: 412-515-3010 | Email: Albert.Whale at IT-Security-inc.com
>>>>> >> Cell: 412-889-6870
>>>>> >>
>>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>>> > Suricata IDS Users mailing list:
>>>>> oisf-users at openinfosecfoundation.org
>>>>> > Site: http://suricata-ids.org | Support:
>>>>> http://suricata-ids.org/support/
>>>>> > List:
>>>>> https://lists.openinfosecfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/oisf-users
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Conference: https://suricon.net
>>>>> > Trainings: https://suricata-ids.org/training/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Michael Shirk
>>>>> Daemon Security, Inc.
>>>>> https://www.daemon-security.com
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Suricata IDS Users mailing list: oisf-users at openinfosecfoundation.org
>>>> Site: http://suricata-ids.org | Support:
>>>> http://suricata-ids.org/support/
>>>> List:
>>>> https://lists.openinfosecfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/oisf-users
>>>>
>>>> Conference: https://suricon.net
>>>> Trainings: https://suricata-ids.org/training/
>>>
>>>
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