Alerts Activity Searches

Search the Alerts index to examine alerts that match your search terms during the specified time period.

Search text box: Specify a keyword or field-based search expression. Keyword searches match any field. Specify field-based name-value pairs for more precise targeting.
Applied Filters: Review and clear filters.
Alerts Timeline: Click a bar to filter by date. Click and drag over two or more bars to set a date range filter.

About Alerts Searches

The Alerts index is populated by alerts rules having the List on Activity Page action.

When you search the Alerts index, you search by alert fields. When you view a Security Analytics result details page, the record includes event log details for the match.

Filter UI

You can use the filter UI to apply the following filters to your search:

  • Date Range

    Select a time period, a relative expression, or a date range. The time period filter is based on alert time; in other words, the timestamp when the alert was triggered.

  • Severity

    Use the slider to specify an event severity range or drag both ends of the slider to a single severity to filter on just one. Event severity is determined by the indicator that matched the event log.

  • Confidence

    Use the slider to specify a confidence score range. Confidence score indicates the certainty that an observable exhibits or is connected to malicious behavior. Confidence score is set by a ThreatStream machine learning algorithm that takes many factors into account, but can be overridden by analysts.

  • Alert Title

    Select a title. The title field is populated by the rule configuration name.

    Note: You can use negation in search expressions by selecting the NOT operator next to the filter heading. For example, to use negation with Alert Title, select the titles you do not want to search and toggle on the NOT operator next to the Alert Title heading.

Filter Examples

indicator contains .com

severity = (high or very-high)

itype in ["mal_url", "mal_domain"]

alert_time >= 2021-12-10T19:18:51.062760Z

match_description contains "no event was received"

match_description contains restored

Filter Operators

The following table describes the logical operators you can use to form complex field-based search expressions. Operator names are not case sensitive.

Field Type Use this Operator
String

=, !=, contains, startswith, in (for lists)

Note:

  • The startswith operator matches any token in the field that starts with the pattern. For example, the expression rule_name startswith critical matches a source field that has the value New Threats Against Critical Targets.
  • Use double quotes to escape special characters and spaces in searches with =, !=, and in operators. For example, itype in ["mal_url", "mal_domain"]
Numeric

=, !=, <, <=, >, >=, in (for lists)

For example, confidence in [80, 90]

Note: The in operator does not accept float and double types.

Date =, !=, <, <=, >, >=
Logical AND, OR, NOT, (specify a parenthetical expression)

Filter Fields

The following table describes all of the possible Alert search fields. The fields listed in the first column correspond with results table column names. The field names listed in the second column are the fields you specify when you form field-based name-value pair search expressions.

Note: Not all fields are included as columns in the results table. When you search by fields without column names, you can locate the matching values in the details page. All of the fields listed in this table can be selected when you export results.

Column Name Field Name
Type Description
Age age Numeric

Indicates the age of the indicator in days.

Event time - intel first seen

A negative age value indicates that the event data was added to Anomali Security Analytics through backfill.

Alert Time alert_time Date

Timestamp when the alert was triggered.

Notes:

  • In the results table, the time displayed is UTC time, adjusted for the browser time zone.

  • When you form search expressions, specify UTC time in the following format: <YYYY><MM><DD>T<HH>:<MM>:<SS>. The date part and the time part are separated by a capital T. You do not need to include T and the time values if you intend to search by date only. The following is an example of UTC time format:
    2022-01-05T00:00:00

  • You can also specify a time zone offset for searches where time zone precision is important. In the following example, the time zone offset is the -08:00 at the end: 
    2022-01-05T00:00:00-08:00

  • In exported results, the date and time are displayed as epoch time values. The following example shows the previous date-time example in epoch format:
    1641342478

Link Type app_type String

Link type that generated the event.

Possible values: universal_link, splunk

ASN asn String Autonomous System Number (ASN) for the IP associated with the indicator.
Criticality asset_src_criticality String

Criticality associated with the asset that is the source of a logged event.

Possible values: critical, high, medium, low

Department asset_src_dept String

Assigned department for an asset that is the source of a logged event.

Examples: Engineering, Finance, HR, Labs, Marketing

Hostname asset_src_hostname String

Host name for an asset that is the source of a logged event.

Examples: example.local, example-pc

IP asset_src_ip String

IP address for an asset that is the source of a logged event.

Example: 192.0.2.1

Location asset_src_location String

Assigned location for an asset that is the source of a logged event.

Example: Redwood City, CA

Vulnerability asset_src_vulnerability String

Vulnerability CVE number associated with an asset that is the source of a logged event.

Examples: CVE-2021-21137, CVE-2019-3385

Classification classification String

Indicates the confidentiality level of an indicator.

Possible values: private, public

Note: Private also includes Trusted Circles.

Confidence confidence Numeric

Score from 0 to 100, as reported by the threat feed provider.

Count count Numeric Aggregated number of events that matched the search criteria.
Country country String Two-letter ISO country code for the IP associated with the indicator. For example, US, CN, DE, and so on.
DGA Probability dga_prob Numeric

Relevant for email-specific events

Probability based on Anomali Security Analytics's DGA algorithm that the domain in the event is a DGA domain.

DGA TAG dga_tag String

Tags associated with the DGA domain that can be used to search for it.

  do_alert Boolean Link alerts. Whether the option to send alerts when Link becomes available has been selected.
Action event.action String

Relevant for firewall and web proxy events

Event log action taken by the source device; for example, Deny, Accept.

Answer event.answer

String

Answers for the DNS query.
Example: ["10.10.10.10","10.10.10.11"]

Application event.app String The application detected.
Example: Slack, Google Gmail, LinkedIn
Bytes In event.bytes_in Numeric

How many bytes received by a network interface.

Example: 347

Bytes Out event.bytes_out Numeric

How many bytes transmitted by a network interface.

Example: 665

Category event.category String

Relevant for AWS VPC and Microsoft Defender logs.

Traffic direction: ingress or egress.

Command Line event.command_line String

The full command string of the spawned process.

Example: "\"procdump.exe\" -ma ls"

Destination event.dest String

Event log destination data. The event.dest value populated from event logs is:

  • An IP address—for example, 192.0.2.1.

  • A fully qualified domain name or registered domain name (second-level domain)—for example, www.google.com or google.com.

  • Host and domain data extracted from URL data. For example, if Security Analytics receives an event log with a destination URL http://www.example.com/somepath/34839/jk30jf, Security Analytics populates event.dest with the extracted host and domain www.example.com.

Indicators that have IP or Domain value types can match event.dest values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.dest values.

Destination IP event.dest_ip String

Event log destination IP address. The event.dest_ip value populated from event logs is an IP address—for example, 192.0.2.1.

Indicators that have IP value types can match event.dest_ip values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.dest_ip values.

Destination Port event.dest_port Numeric

Event log destination port.

Event log destination port field. The value for event.dest_port is the port number from the destination host—for example, 80.

Data Source ID event.ds_id Numeric For Universal Link log sources, this is the log source configuration ID. For Splunk log sources, this field is not applicable.
Data Source Type event.ds_type String

Event log data source type.

Examples: az_sentinel, qradar

Event ID event.event_id String

A Windows identification number that specifies the event type.

Example: 4624

Event Name event.event_name String

The name of an event.

Example: DnsRequest, ProcessRollup2

Filehash event.file_hash String

Event log file hash field. For example, an endpoint management application might write a log that contains file hash values. The event.filehash value populated from event logs is a hash value—for example, 69efa658c59d884c0cd6164cbb61d6d0cb0174355dc9c69327dfb76237c9c9c4.

Indicators that have Hash value types can match event.filehash values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.filehash values.

  event.file_hash2 String A log might have multiple file hash fields.
  event.file_hash3 String A log might have multiple file hash fields.
File Name event.file_name String

Event log field containing filepath.

File Path event.file_path String

The folder containing the file.

Sigma name: FilePath

Example: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation

Originated Host event.host String Event log hostname field. For example, for events ingested from Splunk Link, the value for event.host is the hostname of the Splunk indexer that forwarded the event.

HTTP Method

event.http_method

String

The HTTP method used in the request.
Example: get, post, delete, patch

HTTP Referrer

event.http_referrer

String

The HTTP referrer used in the request.
Example: https://example.com/
Note: Correlated with indicators of type url.

Image event.image String

The executable name of the process.

Sigma name: Image, ProcessName, OriginalFileName, TargetImage, TargetFileName

Example: svchost.exe

Message ID event.message_id

String

The globally-unique message identifier.
Example:
123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000

Original File Name event.original_file_name String

Original name of the file that was changed.

Example: "test.pdf"

Parent Command Line event.parent_command_line String

The full command string of the parent process.

Example: C:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe -k WerSvcGroup

Parent Image event.parent_image String

The executable name of the parent process.

Example: notepad.exe

Parent Process ID event.parent_process_id String

The numeric identifier of the process assigned by the operating system.

Example: 4834

Platform event.platform String

The operating system of the asset.

Sigma name: Platform

Example: win, mac, linux

Process ID event.process_id

Numeric

The numeric identifier of the process assigned by the operating system.
Example: 3683

Protocol event.protocol String

Relevant for firewall and web proxy events

Event log protocol field. The value for event.protocol is the network protocol used to make the connection to the source device—for example http.

DNS Query event.query String

The domain that needs to be resolved in a DNS query.

Example: www.google.com
Note: Correlated with indicators of type domain.

Email Receiver event.receiver String

Relevant for email-specific events

Event log receiver field. The value for event.receiver is the receiver's email address, as specified in the To: field of the email—for example, user@example.com.

Indicators that have Email value types can match event.receiver values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.receiver values.

Record Type event.record_type

String

The DNS resource record type.
Example: A, CNAME, MX, NS, PTR, AAAA

Registry Key event.reg_key string

Registry key that the recorded action was applied to.

Sigma name: TargetObject

Example: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications

Registry Value Name event.reg_value_name string

Name of the registry value that the recorded action was applied to.

Example: "Wordpad"

Registry Value Data event.reg_value_data string

Data of the registry value that the recorded action was applied to.

Example: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Wordpad

Email Sender event.sender String

Relevant for email-specific events

Event log sender field. The value for event.sender is the sender's email address, as specified in the From: field of the email—for example, user@example.com.

Indicators that have Email value types can match event.sender values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.sender values.

Source Type event.sourcetype String

Source device type that generated the event.

Event Source event.src String

Event log source IP field. The event.src value populated from event logs is:

  • An IP address—for example, 192.0.2.1.

  • A fully qualified domain name or registered domain name (second-level domain)—for example, www.google.com or google.com.

Indicators that have IP type or Domain value types can match event.src values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.src values.

Source IP event.src_ip String

Event log source IP field. The event.src_ip value populated from event logs is an IP address—for example, 192.0.2.1.

Indicators that have IP value types can match event.src_ip values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.src_ip values.

Source Port event.src_port Numeric

Relevant for firewall and web proxy events

Event log source port field. The value for event.src_port is the port number from the source device from which the connection was made—for example, 3022.

  event.status String

The status of the service.

Subject event.subject

String

The subject of the message.

URL event.url String

Relevant for firewall and web proxy events

Event log URL field. The value for event.url is populated from URL data having the form http(s)://<FQDN (registered domain)>:[<port>]/[path]?[<query_params>]—for example, http://www.example.com:443/ or http://www.example.com/somepath/34839/jk30jf.

Indicators that have URL value types can match event.url values. See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a reference that includes indicator value types and descriptions.

By default, Security Analytics correlates indicators and event.url values.

User event.user String

Relevant for firewall and web proxy events

Event log user field. The value for event.user is the username associated with an authenticated HTTP(S) connection request—for example, user@example.com.

User Agent event.user_agent String Event log user agent field. The value for event.user-agent is user-agent directive data in an HTTP(S) connection request—for example, Mozilla/5.0 (platform; rv:geckoversion) Gecko/geckotrail Firefox/firefoxversion.
Event Time event_time Date

Event log timestamp field. The value for event.time is timestamp when the event was generated on the source device—for example, 2021-07-28T19:20:00.

Notes:

  • In the results table, the time displayed is UTC time, adjusted for the browser time zone.

  • When you form search expressions, specify UTC time in the following format: <YYYY><MM><DD>T<HH>:<MM>:<SS>. The date part and the time part are separated by a capital T. You do not need to include T and the time values if you intend to search by date only. The following is an example of UTC time format:
    2022-01-05T00:00:00

  • You can also specify a time zone offset for searches where time zone precision is important. In the following example, the time zone offset is the -08:00 at the end: 
    2022-01-05T00:00:00-08:00

  • In exported results, the date and time are displayed as epoch time values. The following example shows the previous date-time example in epoch format:
    1641342478

Indicator indicator String

Value of the indicator.

This field contains the value that was matched and is always equal to the value of srcip, url, domain, md5, or email fields.

IOC Type indicator_type String

Data type of the indicator.

Possible values: ip, domain, url, email, md5

iType itype String

Indicator type. For example, c2_ip, compromised_email, apt_md5, and so on.

See ThreatStream Indicator Types for a complete list of available indicators.

  last_activetime Date Link alerts. Time events were received from a Link.
Latitude lat Numeric

Latitude associated with the Geo location of the IP. The value displayed is rounded up to the nearest thousandth decimal place. For example: 32.789.

Note: Search results are based on non-rounded values, so you might observe anomalous search results, such as a search for lat = 32.789 does not return a result showing a result value 32.789 but a search for lat <= 37.789 does show a result for 32.789. Be aware that rounding produces such minor anomalies.

  link_id String Link alerts. Link ID.
  link_name String Link alerts. Link configuration name.
  link_type String Link alerts. Link type.
Longitude lon Numeric

Longitude associated with the Geo location of the IP. The value displayed is rounded up to the nearest thousandth decimal place. For example: 16.366.

Note: Search results are based on non-rounded values, so you might observe anomalous search results, such as a search for lon = 16.366 does not return a result showing a result value 16.366 but a search for lon <= 16.366 does show a result for 16.366. Be aware that rounding produces such minor anomalies.

Malware Family malware_family String

One or more public malware family names expected to have originated the domain.

Note: Malware families are often known by multiple names or aliases. The name shown in the Anomali Security Analytics UI is one of those names or aliases.

  match_count Numeric Sum of events included in the alert.
  match_description String Link alerts. Alert message.
Event Time Range match_records_time_window Date

The time window examined by the alert rule.

2021-11-29T07:22:14+00:00

Match Type match_type String

Type of alert query filter that matched.

Example: actor

  originator Numeric

Indicates whether the connection was inbound or outbound

  • 0 indicates inbound
  • 1 indicates outbound
Severity severity String

Severity associated with the threat feed that supplied the indicator.

Possible values: low, medium, high, very-high

Note: The search index is tokenized. This means the text is broken down into individual terms during indexing to allow for partial matching. For example, searches for severity=high returns matches for both high and very-high. If the tokenized search behavior returns unexpected results, you can form your search expression for this field using fieldname.raw. For example, if you want results for high, not including very-high, specify severity.raw=high. For more information, see Getting Started with Activity Search.

Source source String

Name of the feed provider or organization that reported the indicator.

Feed source_feed_id Numeric Identifier associated with the feed that contained the indicator.
Event Source Host src_host String

An event source host value derived from asset_src_hostname, event.src, or event_ip fields, in that order. The hostname provided by the asset enrichment would be most readable, so if it data exists for it, it is used. If not, then the other source fields are evaluated.

State state String

Current state of the indicator as reported by the threat feed.

Possible values: active, inactive, falsepos

Tags tags String

Tags specified in the alert rule configuration.

For link alerts, the tags field is populated with the Link ID (dcid) and a message indicating one of the following statuses: No events received or Link restored.

TM ids tm_ids Numeric Threat Model ID information from ThreatStream.
TM names tm_names String Threat Model name information from ThreatStream.
TM type tm_type String Threat Model type information from ThreatStream.
  trusted_circle_names String

Names of the Trusted Circle with which this threat intelligence is shared on ThreatStream.

Note: This field, not trusted_circle_id, is included in the export file when you export search results.

Raw Event ID _raw_id Numeric Internal.

Alerts Match Results Table

The following figure identifies the UI elements that you use to manipulate the displayed results to find information about Alerts matches.

Review and reset applied filters.
Observe the graph of matches over time.
Select a number of rows per page.
Click the column header to sort the rows in ascending or descending order according to values in the column. Click a column header divider and drag it to make a column wider or more narrow.
Go to the next page of results or another page by page number.
Export the results table. See Export Search Results.
Perform an action related to the selected row. See Perform Actions.
Click a hyperlinked indicator value and select an action: search VirusTotal or run a retrospective search.
Display the Details page for the matched event. See View Alert Details.
Create a Saved Search configuration. See Saved Searches.

Perform Actions

The Action menu above the results table allows you to perform the following actions.

Action Description
Configure Fields Select this option to configure the fields (columns) that appear in the results table.
Retrospective Search

Select this option to perform a retrospective search for the indicator correlated with the event.

Note: This action is not applicable for Link alerts.

Investigate

Select this option to add the result to a ThreatStream investigation. Configure one of the following choices:

  • Create Investigation: Specify a name for the investigation and select an assignee to create a ThreatStream investigation.

  • Add to Investigation: Search or browse to find and then select a ThreatStream investigation.

Note: For information about ThreatStream investigations, refer to the ThreatStream online help.

View Alert Details

Click the Details icon in the right-most column to display the details page.
Alert Details for IOC Matches

The following figure identifies the UI elements that you use to find information on the Alert Details page.

Open ThreatStream to view ThreatStream reports about the indicator.
Review the indicator details and event details correlated in Security Analytics.

Raw Logs: View more event data. When you click Get Raw Logs:

  • Security Analytics sends a drilldown query to log sources that support drill down queries. The source sends the raw log in response. Raw logs are available as long as they remain available on the log source system.

  • Security Analytics retrieves event log data from Security Analytics storage for log sources that do not support drilldown queries. The fields in logs stored in Security Analytics have been normalized to Security Analytics event fields.

  • Security Analytics returns no results if the associated Anomali Link is inactive.

Use the tabs to review associated ThreatStream threat model entities and investigations.

Click Actions and select Add to Investigation to add the log to a ThreatStream investigation.

Note: For information about ThreatStream investigations, refer to the ThreatStream online help.

Click the X to exit the details page and return to the results table.
Alert Details for Link Alerts

The following figure identifies the UI elements that you use to find information on the Alert Details page.

Review the Link alert rule and matching event details.

Click Get Raw Logs to see the alert message JSON content.

Click Actions and select Add to Investigation to add the log to a ThreatStream investigation.

Note: For information about ThreatStream investigations, refer to the ThreatStream online help.

Click the X to exit the details page and return to the results table.
Alert Details for Event Search Alerts

Alert details works differently for Event Search alerts. When you click the Details icon , Security Analytics opens a new browser tab to Event Search and loads the Event Search query and time range that was specified in the alert rule that was triggered. From there, you can modify the query as desired to hone in on details related to the condition that triggered the alert.