Re: [logs] most popular reports...?

From: Devdas Bhagat (devdas@private)
Date: Wed Aug 18 2004 - 11:37:47 PDT


On 17/08/04 20:27 -0400, Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
> Hi -
> 	I'm trying to build a list of the "most popular reports" that
> people pull from their system logs. This is mostly for my curiousity,
> but also to see if log analysts tend to share common goals, or
> whether we're all over the spectrum. I'm also hoping to be able to
> maybe assemble a "top ten" list that people can look/ask for
> from log analysis vendors.

Top N blocked spam sending systems (by IP, by domain and by ip whois).
	-- Useful for judging how good/bad a DNSBL is with respect to
		your requirements

Top N servers handling the mail load.
	-- Ideally, this should be equally well distributed.

Top N ports being probed.
	-- New attacks?

Top N hosts trying to relay via your servers.
	-- Zombies? Compromised hosts?

Top N changes to routing information, if running a dynamic routing protocol.
	-- Shows network stability/instability

<Webserver logs, the usual suspects>

Top N machines spewing out useless traffic on the network.
	-- essentially a breakdown by protocol per host, rather than by
	host per protocol. This should indicate protocols which you
	would try to avoid on the network/other problems. Eg, if a host
	which normally does 1 Mb/s of NetBIOS traffic suddenly jumps to
	10 Mb/s, you have a problem.

New programs installed on various systems.
Any users created/deleted.

Database logs (for tuning purposes -- number of times a specific query
is run, how long the query takes, top N queries, etc).

DNS -- Top N domains queried for.

If running an authoritative reverse DNS, the number of rDNS queries per
host. A sudden spike in the number of rDNS requests could indicate a
spam run.

> Here's my list:
> 	N should be considered a settable parameter
> 
> 	- Top N machines sending/receiving traffic through the firewall
> 	- Top N machines sending/receiving traffic on the network segment
> 		same as above but inward-looking
> 	- Top N machines being accessed behind the firewall
> 	- Breakdown of traffic through firewall by service (%-age)
> 		this popular as a pie chart
> 	- Breakdown of traffic on the network segment by service (%-age)
> 		same as above but inward-looking
> 	- Top N email address(es) sending Email messages
> 	- Top N email address(es) receiving Email messages
> 	- %age of Email that is identified as spam
> 	- %age of Email that contains blocked attachments
> 	- Top N machines accessing web
> 	- Top N targets identified in IDS alerts
> 	- Top N IDS attacks identified
> 	- %age of web traffic aimed at sites on porn blacklist
> 	- %age of traffic aimed at sites on spy/adware blacklist
> 	- Top N porn-surfers
> 	- Top N most-ad/spyware infected systems
> 	- New machines that have served WWW/FTP/SMTP today
> 
> (I am teaching a tutorial on system log analysis for SANS and
> USENIX/LISA and will gleefully add your good suggestions to
> my list!)

Devdas Bhagat
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