Detect Virtual Private Server in Sumo Logic CSE
Adversaries may rent Virtual Private Servers (VPSs) to stage malicious infrastructure including command-and-control (C2) servers, phishing pages, payload delivery endpoints, and exfiltration destinations. VPS providers offer rapid provisioning, geographic flexibility, and—when chosen carefully—minimal registration requirements, making attribution difficult. Because VPS-hosted IPs typically carry commercial hosting ASN reputation rather than residential or known-malicious reputation, they can evade naive geo-blocking and ASN-based controls. Real-world actors documented using this technique include Gamaredon, APT28, LAPSUS$, Ember Bear (GRU Unit 29155), HAFNIUM, APT42, Moonstone Sleet, and Contagious Interview. Detection from a defender perspective focuses on three observable effects: outbound C2 beaconing FROM compromised endpoints TO VPS-hosted IPs, inbound attack traffic (scanning, exploit delivery, phishing redirectors) FROM VPS IP ranges, and identity-based signals such as authentication attempts from datacenter IP space. Because T1583.003 is a Resource Development technique (TA0042), it is not directly observable on victim endpoints—detection is necessarily inferential, relying on behavioral patterns that betray VPS-based infrastructure in use.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Resource Development
- Technique
- T1583 Acquire Infrastructure
- Sub-technique
- T1583.003 Virtual Private Server
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1583/003/
Sumo Detection Query
_sourceCategory=*windows*sysmon* EventCode=3
| where !isNull(DestinationIp)
| where !matches(DestinationIp, /^10\./)
AND !matches(DestinationIp, /^172\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[01])\./)
AND !matches(DestinationIp, /^192\.168\./)
AND !matches(DestinationIp, /^127\./)
AND !matches(DestinationIp, /^169\.254\./)
AND DestinationIp != "::1"
| where !matches(Image, /(?i)(chrome|firefox|msedge|MicrosoftEdgeCP|iexplore|brave|opera|safari|waterfox|svchost|MsMpEng|wuauclt|TrustedInstaller|msiexec|teams|OneDrive|ccmexec)\.exe$/)
| timeslice 1h
| count as ConnectionCount, count_distinct(DestinationPort) as UniqueDestPorts, values(DestinationPort) as DestPorts by _timeslice, Computer, User, Image, CommandLine, DestinationIp
| where ConnectionCount >= 12
| toDouble(ConnectionCount) as ConnDbl
| eval ConnectionsPerMinute = round(ConnDbl / 60, 2)
| if (ConnectionCount >= 50 AND UniqueDestPorts <= 1, "CRITICAL - Highly Regular Single-Port Beaconing",
if (ConnectionCount >= 30 AND UniqueDestPorts <= 2, "HIGH - Low Port Variance Repetitive Connections",
if (ConnectionCount >= 20, "MEDIUM - Elevated Outbound Connection Frequency",
"LOW - Above Threshold Outbound Frequency"))) as BeaconRisk
| if (matches(BeaconRisk, "CRITICAL"), 4,
if (matches(BeaconRisk, "HIGH"), 3,
if (matches(BeaconRisk, "MEDIUM"), 2, 1))) as RiskScore
| fields _timeslice, Computer, User, Image, CommandLine, DestinationIp, ConnectionCount, ConnectionsPerMinute, UniqueDestPorts, DestPorts, BeaconRisk, RiskScore
| sort by RiskScore, ConnectionCountDetects C2 beaconing behavior to VPS-hosted infrastructure using Sysmon Event ID 3 forwarded to Sumo Logic. Groups outbound connections by 1-hour timeslices per host, user, process, and destination IP, filtering out browser and common system processes and all RFC 1918 / loopback / link-local addresses. Applies the same four-tier risk scoring model as the reference SPL query. Requires Sysmon logs ingested with _sourceCategory matching the windows/sysmon pattern and field extraction for EventCode, Image, CommandLine, DestinationIp, DestinationPort, Computer, and User.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- Legitimate SaaS application sync clients (Dropbox, Box, SharePoint sync) make high-frequency keepalive connections to cloud endpoints; baseline known sync client process names and their associated destination CIDR ranges and exclude from this rule.
- Database connection pool clients (Java JDBC, .NET SqlClient, Python psycopg2) cycling connections to cloud-hosted RDS or managed database endpoints appear as repeated same-destination bursts; exclude known DB client process names and destination port 1433, 3306, 5432, 5439.
- CI/CD pipeline agents (Jenkins agent, GitHub Actions runner, GitLab runner) poll for work assignments at regular intervals and produce consistent beacon-like patterns; exclude runner process names and the CI/CD server IP range.
Other platforms for T1583.003
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 4 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Simulate C2 Beacon via PowerShell HTTP Check-in to VPS-like Endpoint
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=powershell.exe and CommandLine containing '-WindowStyle Hidden' and 'Invoke-WebRequest'. Sysmon Event ID 3: 15 network connections from powershell.exe to 127.0.0.1:8443 at approximately 5-second intervals. PowerShell ScriptBlock Log Event ID 4104 with the full script body.
- Test 2Simulate VPS Payload Download via LOLBin (certutil)
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=certutil.exe and CommandLine containing '-urlcache' and '-f'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Network Connection from certutil.exe to 127.0.0.1:8080. Sysmon Event ID 11: File Create attempt for %TEMP%\df00tech-vps-test.exe (may not succeed if no listener). Security Event ID 4688 (if command line auditing enabled).
- Test 3Simulate VPS-based Reconnaissance Inbound Scan Detection (nmap from localhost)
Expected signal: Linux auditd: syscall execve for nmap with full argument list. Syslog: nmap process execution. Network: TCP SYN packets to localhost ports 22, 80, 443, 3389, 8080, 8443. If monitoring inbound scan patterns on perimeter, this generates SYN packets with no corresponding application connection.
- Test 4Simulate Azure AD Authentication from VPS IP Range via PowerShell Graph API Call
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=powershell.exe. Sysmon Event ID 3: Network Connection from powershell.exe to login.microsoftonline.com:443. Sysmon Event ID 22 (DNS Query): DNS resolution of login.microsoftonline.com. PowerShell ScriptBlock Log Event ID 4104.
References (12)
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1583/003/
- https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/wp/wp-criminal-hideouts-for-lease.pdf
- https://michaelkoczwara.medium.com/cobalt-strike-c2-hunting-with-shodan-c448d501a6e2
- https://threatconnect.com/blog/infrastructure-research-hunting/
- https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/scandalous-external-detection-using-network-scan-data-and-automation/
- https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa24-249a
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2022/03/22/dev-0537-criminal-actor-targeting-organizations-for-data-exfiltration-and-destruction/
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/unit-42-gamaredon-group-russia-linked/
- https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/winter-vivern-all-you-need-is-one-side-loading-and-a-good-lure/
- https://www.ic3.gov/Media/News/2022/220211.pdf
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sentinel/understand-threat-intelligence
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-endpoint/advanced-hunting-devicenetworkevents-table
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