Collecting Indicators Of Compromise

Collecting Indicators Of Compromise

Overview

Cybersecurity skill for collecting indicators of compromise. Follows industry best practices and security standards.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "collecting indicators of compromise"

• "Systematically collects, categorizes, and distributes indicators of compromise ("

• During active incident response to identify and block adversary infrastructure

• Post-incident to document all observed adversary artifacts for future detection

• When sharing threat intelligence with ISACs, sector partners, or law enforcement

• When building detection rules in SIEM, EDR, or network security tools

• When enriching IOCs with threat intelligence context for risk scoring

Do not use for behavioral TTP analysis without accompanying technical indicators; use MITRE ATT&CK mapping for behavioral characterization.

When NOT to Use

• When you lack proper authorization for testing
• For production systems without change management
• When the task requires legal or compliance expertise beyond technical scope

Prerequisites

• Access to incident evidence sources: SIEM logs, EDR telemetry, memory dumps, disk images, network captures
• Threat intelligence platform (MISP, OpenCTI, ThreatConnect) for IOC management and sharing
• IOC enrichment tools: VirusTotal, OTX (AlienVault Open Threat Exchange), Shodan, DomainTools
• STIX 2.1 knowledge for structured IOC representation
• Sharing agreements with relevant ISACs (FS-ISAC, H-ISAC, IT-ISAC) or sector partners

Workflow

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": r"\b[a-f0-9]{64}\b",
}

def extract_iocs(text: str) -> dict:
    return {k: re.findall(v, text) for k, v in IOC_PATTERNS.items()}

1. Define Objectives — Clarify the goals and scope for indicators of compromise.
2. Gather Resources — Collect tools, data, and access needed for indicators of compromise.
3. Execute Process — Carry out indicators of compromise operations methodically.
4. Verify Quality — Check results against acceptance criteria.
5. Document Outcomes — Record findings, decisions, and next steps.

Tools

• Analysis Platform — Data processing and visualization
• Collaboration Tools — Team coordination and knowledge sharing

Process

1. Prepare — Gather requirements, verify prerequisites, set up environment
2. Execute — Run collecting indicators of compromise workflow with configured parameters
3. Verify — Validate output meets requirements, document results

Verification

• All indicators of compromise procedures executed completely and documented
• Findings validated against multiple data sources
• False positives identified and filtered
• Results documented with evidence and timestamps
• Recommendations provided with risk-based prioritization

Anti-Rationalization Table