Events

30 May 2024
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Events

Updated on 30 May 2024
4 Minutes to read

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LimaCharlie provides a multitude of events based on actions generated by sensors, systems, services, artifacts, and other key functions of the platform. The following pages provide details on structured events available in LimaCharlie. Note, these are events generated by the LimaCharlie EDR sensor or the LimaCharlie platform. Events generated by third-party sources (i.e., ingested via an Adapter) will be provided in their raw format, and can be addressed as such within Detection & Response rules.

Looking for an event?

Not seeing an expected event in your timeline? Be sure that you included all events of insert in your Exfil Control.

The following is a reference list of structured events available in LimaCharlie. Note that the following are limited to events generated by the LimaCharlie EDR sensor or the LimaCharlie platform. Furthermore, some events may be a "response" event, implying it is data provided in response to a user or service request.

Formatting

At a high level, events in LimaCharlie are in standard formatted JSON.

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "event": {
      "type": "any",
      "description": "Schema is determined by the routing/event_type"
    },
    "routing": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "this": {
          "type": "string",
          "description": "GUID (i.e. 1e9e242a512d9a9b16d326ac30229e7b) - see 'Atoms' section for more detail",
          "format": "Atom"
        },
        "event_type": {
          "type": "string",
          "description": "The event type (e.g. NEW_PROCESS, NETWORK_SUMMARY) dictates the 'event' schema"
        },
        "event_time": {
          "type": "integer",
          "description": "The time the event was observed on the host"
        },
        "event_id": {
          "type": "string",
          "format": "UUID"
        },
        "oid": {
          "type": "string",
          "format": "UUID",
          "description": "Organization ID"
        },
        "sid": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
          "format": "UUID",
          "description": "Sensor ID"
        },
        "did": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
          "format": "UUID",
          "description": "Device ID"
        },
        "iid": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
          "format": "UUID",
          "description": "Installer Key ID"
        },
        "investigation_id": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
          "format": "string",
          "description": "Events responding to a command will include this if it was provided along with the command"
        },
        "parent": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
          "description": "Atom of possible parent event",
          "format": "Atom"
        },
        "target": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
          "description": "Atom of possible target event",
          "format": "Atom"
        },
        "hostname": {
          "type": ["string", "null"],
        },
        "arch": {
          "type": ["integer", "null"],
          "description": "Integer corresponds with sensor architecture"
        },
        "plat": {
          "type": ["integer", "null"],
          "description": "Integer corresponds with sensor platform"
        },
        "tags": {
          "type": ["array"],
          "format": "string",
          "description": "Tags applied to sensor at the time the event was sent"
        },
      }
    }
  }
}

The following is a sample event utilizing the above schema:

{
  "event": {
    "BASE_ADDRESS": 140702709383168,
    "COMMAND_LINE": "C:\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\evil.exe -Embedding",
    "FILE_IS_SIGNED": 1,
    "FILE_PATH": "C:\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\evil.exe",
    "HASH": "5ef1322b96f176c4ea4b8304caf8b45e2e42c3188aa52ed1fd6196afc04b7297",
    "MEMORY_USAGE": 9515008,
    "PARENT": {
      "BASE_ADDRESS": 140697905135616,
      "COMMAND_LINE": "C:\\\\Windows\\\\system32\\\\unknown.exe -k Launch",
      "CREATION_TIME": 1625797634428,
      "FILE_IS_SIGNED": 1,
      "FILE_PATH": "C:\\\\Windows\\\\system32\\\\unknown.exe",
      "HASH": "438b6ccd84f4dd32d9684ed7d58fd7d1e5a75fe3f3d14ab6c788e6bb0ffad5e7",
      "MEMORY_USAGE": 19070976,
      "PARENT_ATOM": "ebf1884039c7650401b2198f60f89d2d",
      "PARENT_PROCESS_ID": 123,
      "PROCESS_ID": 1234,
      "THIS_ATOM": "ad48d1f14a8e5a114e85f79b60f89d2d",
      "THREADS": 14,
      "TIMESTAMP": 1626905901981,
      "USER_NAME": "NT AUTHORITY\\\\SYSTEM"
    },
    "PARENT_PROCESS_ID": 580,
    "PROCESS_ID": 5096,
    "THREADS": 6,
    "USER_NAME": "BUILTIN\\\\Administrators"
  },
  "routing": {
    "this": "655c970d2052b9f1c365839b611baf96",
    "parent": "ad48d1f14a3e5a114e85f79b60f89d2d",
    "arch": 2,
    "did": "3ef599f3-64dc-51f5-8322-62b0a6b8eef7",
    "event_id": "bdf6df69-b72c-470a-994b-216f1cdde9a7",
    "event_time": 1629204374140,
    "event_type": "NEW_PROCESS",
    "ext_ip": "123.456.78.901",
    "hostname": "test-host-123",
    "iid": "e22638c9-44a6-455a-83e2-a689ac9868a7",
    "int_ip": "10.4.34.227",
    "moduleid": 2,
    "oid": "8cbe27f4-agh1-4afb-ba19-138cd51389cd",
    "plat": 268435456,
    "sid": "d3d17f12-eecf-5287-b3a1-bf267aabb3cf",
    "tags": ["server"],
  },
}

Specific Event schemas are learned and available through the Schema API.

Events can be observed and matched by Detection & Response rules to automate behavior and can also be streamed via Outputs to the destination of your choice.

Atoms

Atoms are Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). An example might be: 1e9e242a512d9a9b16d326ac30229e7b. You can treat them as opaque values. These unique values are used to relate events together rather than using Process IDs, which are themselves unreliable.

Relationships

Atoms can be found in up to 3 spots in an event:

routing/this: current event
routing/parent: parent of the current event
routing/target: target of the current event

Using atom references from a single event, the chain of ancestor events can be constructed. Here's a simplified example of an event and its parent event:

Child event:

{
  "event": {...},
  "routing": {
    "this": "abcdef",
    "parent": "zxcv"
    ...
  }
}

Parent event:

{
  "event": {...},
  "routing": {
    "this": "zxcv",
    "parent": "poiuy"
    ...
  }
}

API users may construct a tree from a single atom using these 2 endpoints:

/insight/{oid}/{sid}/{atom} - get event by atom
/insight/{oid}/{sid}/{atom}/children - get children of an atom

These can be called recursively on each event's routing/parent and/or child events to complete a full tree if required - this is how the tree view works in the Timeline of a sensor in the web application.

The parent-child relationship serves to describe parent and child processes via the NEW_PROCESS or EXISTING_PROCESS events, but other types of events may also have parents. For example, on NETWORK_SUMMARY events, the parent will be the process that generated the network connections.

Tip: when using custom storage and/or searching solutions it's helpful to index the values of routing/this and routing/parent for each event. Doing so will speed up searching during threat hunting and investigations.

Finally, the routing/target is only sometimes found in an event, and it represents an event that interacts with another event without having a parent-child relationship. For example, in the NEW_REMOTE_THREAD event, this target represents a process where a remote thread was created.

Streams

There are 6 different event streams moving through LimaCharlie:

Name	Description	D&R Target	Output
Telemetry	Events sent from sensors	`edr`	✅
Deployment	Lifecycle events sent from sensors	`deployment`	✅
Detections	Detections reported from D&R rules	`detection`	✅
Artifacts	Artifacts sent from sensors (or API)	`artifact`	✅
Artifact Events	Lifecycle events for artifacts	`artifact_event`	✅
Audit	Audit logs for management activity within LimaCharlie	`audit`	✅
Billing	Billing activity within LimaCharlie	`billing`	✅

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What's Next

Drivers

Table of contents

Formatting
Atoms
Streams