Performing Threat Hunting With Elastic Siem

Performing Threat Hunting With Elastic Siem

Overview

Cybersecurity skill for performing threat hunting with elastic siem. Follows industry best practices and security standards.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "performing threat hunting with elastic siem"
• "SOC teams need to proactively search for threats not caught by existing detectio"
• "Threat intelligence reports describe new TTPs requiring validation against histo"
• "Red team exercises reveal detection gaps that need hunting query development"

Use this skill when:

• SOC teams need to proactively search for threats not caught by existing detection rules
• Threat intelligence reports describe new TTPs requiring validation against historical data
• Red team exercises reveal detection gaps that need hunting query development
• Periodic hunting cadence requires structured hypothesis-driven investigations

Do not use for real-time alert triage — that belongs in the Elastic Security Alerts queue with automated detection rules.

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

• Elastic Security 8.x+ with Security app enabled in Kibana
• Data ingestion via Elastic Agent (Endpoint Security integration) or Beats (Winlogbeat, Filebeat, Packetbeat)
• Data normalized to Elastic Common Schema (ECS) field mappings
• User role with kibana_security_solution and read access to relevant indices
• MITRE ATT&CK framework knowledge for hypothesis generation

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. Plan Operations — Define objectives, scope, and success criteria for threat hunting operations.
2. Prepare Environment — Set up tools, access, and data sources required for threat hunting.
3. Execute Core Workflow — Use elastic siem to perform threat hunting operations following established procedures.
4. Validate Results — Verify that results meet quality standards and objectives.
5. Report Findings — Document results, observations, and recommendations.
6. Follow Up — Track remediation actions and verify fixes where applicable.

Tools

• elastic siem — Primary tool for this skill
• Analysis Platform — Data processing and visualization
• Collaboration Tools — Team coordination and knowledge sharing

Process

1. Reconnaissance — Gather target information, identify attack surface, enumerate services
2. Analysis/Exploitation — Execute the technique, analyze results, document findings
3. Reporting — Document IOCs, write findings, provide remediation recommendations

Verification

• All threat hunting 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