Re: How to decide which rules should be enabled.

[Joel Esler <jesler () sourcefire com>]

Speaking of which, we're going to be moving into the next phase of our rule recategorization soon..  I'll blog post 
about it when it happens.


On Jul 19, 2012, at 12:50 PM, JJC <cummingsj () gmail com> wrote:

> Shane et all,
>
> What you said was exactly the idea... new rules files or categories change... you don't need to modify your 
> snort.conf...  pulledpork will add this new filename/category to the master file automatically.  You still have the 
> same level of granular control as you would with individual rules files, however you now control it using pulledpork. 
>  Ex: rather than commenting out a filename (read category for now) you add that category to the disablesid.conf and 
> include that when you run pulledpork... voila.. all of those rules are now disabled...
>
> JJC
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Castle, Shane <scastle () bouldercounty org> wrote:
> Actually, I have discovered that over time having individual rules files leads to old rules being used when they 
> should not be (cruft) and new rules not being used when they should be, since these file names may change or be added 
> to without warning. Having PulledPork combine them into one file is a great feature, IMHO.
>
> I'll not return to OinkMaster. It was great at first, but PulledPork has it soundly beaten.
>
> --
> Shane Castle
> Data Security Mgr, Boulder County IT
> CISSP GSEC GCIH
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joel Esler [mailto:jesler () sourcefire com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 09:54
> To: Bravo Snipper
> Cc: snort list
> Subject: Re: [Snort-users] How to decide which rules should be enabled.
>
> The answer is "it depends"
>
> You can make pulled pork still output the "individual" files if you want.  I don't know the command for it, but maybe 
> JJ can chime in here?
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Bravo Snipper <snipperbravo () yahoo com> wrote:
>
>
>         Hi
>
>         Al right I opted for  rule policy "security" in pulledpork.
>
>
>         Now when i manually downloaded  snortrules-snapshot-xxxx I can see different *.rules file, a separate 
> pre_proc directory etc.
>
>         But when i use pulledpork it only places a singal file snort.rules in rules directory, it has all the rules 
> in single file.
>
>         Why is it different?
>         Isn't keeping separate rules file e.g scan.rules, web-attack.rules is more manageable.
>
>         Can this(keeping single rule file or multiple) be configured using pulledpork configuration.
>         Currently I used pulledpork in the following way;
>
>         -My pulledpork command
>         /usr/local/bin/pulledpork.pl -c /etc/snort/pulledpork.conf -T -l
>
>         -ips_policy=security
>
>
>         Regards
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>         From: Tony Robinson <trobinson () sourcefire com>
>         To: Bravo Snipper <snipperbravo () yahoo com>
>         Cc: snort list <snort-users () lists sourceforge net>
>         Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 7:53 PM
>         Subject: Re: [Snort-users] How to decide which rules should be enabled.
>
>
>         Realized I made some typos on my example rule.
>
>         it should be alert icmp any any any any (message:"[your message]"; sid:[your sid number]; rev:[rev. number];)
>
>         - there should be four any statements in the rule header, message argument is usually in quotes, and each 
> argument in the rule body must have a semicolon after it.
>
>         ... guess my coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
>
>         Cheers,
>
>         -Tony
>
>
>         On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 9:40 AM, Tony Robinson <trobinson () sourcefire com> wrote:
>
>
>                 Hi there,
>
>                 The question around rulesets is one that is very easy to ask, and exceptionally difficult to answer. 
> It really requires knowing your network and enabling rules for things that concern you. that is going to differ from 
> place to place and snort deployment to snort deployment. One person may be concerned about p2p traffic, or rules that 
> violate corporate policy, while another may be concerned about botnet CNC rules.
>
>                 Something that may help you build a good rule baseline is the program pulled pork. (link to the 
> readme: http://code.google.com/p/pulledpork/source/browse/trunk/README?r=225) The program will pull down the latest 
> available rules from snort.org <http://snort.org/>  and allows you to easily build a ruleset based off three base 
> policies: Connectivity over Security, Balanced, and Security over Connectivity. From there you can pare down a 
> rule-heavy ruleset, or bulk up one of the smaller rulesets to meet your needs.
>
>                 Another recommendation I can make is signing up to the SANS @risk newsletter. Every Thursday, SANS 
> puts out a newsletter of the top exploits and malware seen out in the wild, with the help of our very own VRT 
> (Vulnerability Research Team). Under each vulnerability is an associated snort SID (or in some cases, multiple SIDs), 
> and an associated ClamAV signature for detecting the exploit or malware. Best of all, this is a free resource.
>
>                 While these aren't definitive answers to your question, they are a very good start to building a good 
> rule set.
>
>                 In regards to your question for testing snort, there are many ways of doing that. Snort has a 
> built-in -T parameter you can use to test the snort.conf file and ensure that everything is "sane" and that snort 
> will at least start up.
>
>                 In terms of testing whether or not snort is actively sniffing traffic off the wire, a good trick is 
> to create a file called local.rules, include it in your snort.conf file and create a simple rule such as:
>
>                 alert icmp any any any (message:[your message here] sid:1000000; rev:1;)
>
>                 and trying pinging something your snort sensor has visibility on. If you get alerts, it is a good 
> sign that snort is working. This is usually a setup step specified in some of the snort install guides on snort.org 
> <http://snort.org/> .
>
>                 Hope this helps,
>
>                 -Tony
>
>
>                 On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 3:47 AM, Bravo Snipper <snipperbravo () yahoo com> wrote:
>
>
>                         Hi
>
>                         After snort installation now how can we decide that which rules should be enabled or we 
> should enable all the rules given by snort. Can any one please share some  tutorial regarding this aspect of snort 
> configuration.
>
>                         Plus can any one name some standard set of tools to  test snorts setup.
>
>                         regards.
>
>
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>
>
>
>
>                 --
>
>                 Tony Robinson
>
>                 Security Consultant I
>                 SourceFIRE Professional Services Division
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>         --
>
>         Tony Robinson
>
>         Security Consultant I
>         SourceFIRE Professional Services Division
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
>
> Joel Esler
> Senior Research Engineer, VRT
> OpenSource Community Manager
> Sourcefire
>
>
>
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