Cyber Risks · Cisco Talos

Say Hello to the file-identify category

Summary: Cisco Talos introduced a new VRT rule category called "file-identify.rules" that standardizes rules setting a flowbit and detects file types from file data rather than URI extensions, starting with roughly 70 rules that detect file "magic" bytes. Stage 2 moves all URI file-extension checks into the new category, and a new snort configuration variable, portvar FILE_DATA_PORTS [$HTTP_PORTS,110,143], is introduced alongside standardized flowbit names such as replacing "http.gif" with "file.gif".

What's compelling: Detection built on a URI extension can be fooled by a PDF named with a .jpg extension, producing false positives at best and false negatives at worst - and anyone not running Sourcefire or PulledPork must manually add the FILE_DATA_PORTS variable to snort.conf or their flowbit-dependent rules will not work as intended.

Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗

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Malware
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