Claude 24f816b6a3
Consolidate 22 sibling repos into layered organism structure
Place useful parts of the surrounding repos into sica-fondt by layer, per the
body model (Ada = membrane; brain/endocrine/capabilities/knowledge non-Ada):

- brain/        LLM reasoning + providers (dapr, hermes, MoMoA)
- capabilities/ REPRAG sidecars: hermes tools/skills, dapr tools, parallel
                dispatch, A51 channels, and the OSINT cluster
- knowledge/    LORAG corpus: 754 cyber-skills, agency personas, secure-coding,
                MITRE ATT&CK data
- reference/    defensive threat-reference (C3, shhbruh doc) + AdaYaml parser

License handling: AGPL sources (worldosint, advanced_evolution, mercury,
Reticulum) and GPL DeTTECT are SPEC-only clean-room/port descriptions — no
copyleft code copied. MIT/Apache/data parts copied as working trees.

Safety: shhbruh escape/persistence material and C3 covert-C2 kept as reference
only, not wired into the running organism. See CONSOLIDATION.md.

https://claude.ai/code/session_01UehUqEXXJJCsHoA4voCU5c
2026-06-10 06:53:01 +00:00

68 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown

---
name: hunting-for-cobalt-strike-beacons
description: Detect Cobalt Strike beacon network activity using default TLS certificate signatures (serial 8BB00EE), JA3/JA3S/JARM
fingerprints, HTTP C2 profile pattern matching, beacon jitter analysis, and named pipe detection via Zeek, Suricata, and
Python PCAP analysis.
domain: cybersecurity
subdomain: threat-hunting
tags:
- cobalt-strike
- beacon
- threat-hunting
- c2
- zeek
- suricata
- ja3
- jarm
- network-forensics
version: '1.0'
author: mahipal
license: Apache-2.0
nist_csf:
- DE.CM-01
- DE.AE-02
- DE.AE-07
- ID.RA-05
---
# Hunting for Cobalt Strike Beacons
## Overview
Cobalt Strike is the most prevalent command-and-control framework used by both red teams and threat actors. Beacon, its primary payload, communicates with team servers using configurable HTTP/HTTPS/DNS profiles that can mimic legitimate traffic. However, default configurations and behavioral patterns remain detectable through TLS certificate analysis (default serial 8BB00EE), JA3/JA3S fingerprinting, beacon interval jitter analysis, and HTTP malleable profile pattern matching. This skill covers building detection capabilities using Zeek network logs, Suricata IDS rules, and Python-based PCAP analysis to identify beacon callbacks in network traffic.
## When to Use
- When investigating security incidents that require hunting for cobalt strike beacons
- When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
- When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
- When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques
## Prerequisites
- Zeek 6.0+ with JA3 and HASSH packages installed
- Suricata 7.0+ with Emerging Threats ruleset
- Python 3.9+ with scapy and dpkt libraries
- Network traffic captures (PCAP) or live Zeek logs
- RITA (Real Intelligence Threat Analytics) for beacon scoring
- Threat intelligence feeds with known Cobalt Strike IOCs
## Steps
### Step 1: TLS Certificate Analysis
Detect default Cobalt Strike certificates using JA3S fingerprints, certificate serial numbers, and JARM fingerprints in Zeek ssl.log.
### Step 2: Beacon Interval Analysis
Analyze connection timing patterns to identify regular callback intervals with configurable jitter, characteristic of beacon behavior.
### Step 3: HTTP Profile Detection
Match HTTP request patterns (URI paths, headers, user-agents) against known malleable C2 profiles.
### Step 4: Correlate and Score
Combine multiple indicators (TLS + timing + HTTP profile) into a composite beacon confidence score.
## Expected Output
JSON report containing detected beacon candidates with confidence scores, TLS fingerprints, timing analysis, HTTP profile matches, and recommended response actions.