Elastic Security Detection Rules

VNC (Virtual Network Computing) to the Internet

Last updated 9 days ago on 2025-05-05
Created 5 years ago on 2020-02-18

About

This rule detects network events that may indicate the use of VNC traffic to the Internet. VNC is commonly used by system administrators to remotely control a system for maintenance or to use shared resources. It should almost never be directly exposed to the Internet, as it is frequently targeted and exploited by threat actors as an initial access or backdoor vector.
Tags
Tactic: Command and ControlDomain: EndpointUse Case: Threat DetectionData Source: PAN-OSLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Command and Control (TA0011)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Remote Access Tools (T1219)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
VNC connections may be made directly to Linux cloud server instances but such connections are usually made only by engineers. VNC is less common than SSH or RDP but may be required by some work flows such as remote access and support for specialized software products or servers. Such work-flows are usually known and not unexpected. Usage that is unfamiliar to server or network owners can be unexpected and suspicious.
License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Query (Kibana Query Language)
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
packetbeat-*auditbeat-*filebeat-*logs-network_traffic.*logs-panw.panos*
Related Integrations

network_traffic(opens in a new tab or window)

panw(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
(event.dataset: network_traffic.flow  or (event.category: (network or network_traffic))) and
  network.transport:tcp and destination.port >= 5800 and destination.port <= 5810 and
  source.ip:(
    10.0.0.0/8 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or
    192.168.0.0/16
  ) and
  not destination.ip:(
    10.0.0.0/8 or
    127.0.0.0/8 or
    169.254.0.0/16 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or
    192.0.0.0/24 or
    192.0.0.0/29 or
    192.0.0.8/32 or
    192.0.0.9/32 or
    192.0.0.10/32 or
    192.0.0.170/32 or
    192.0.0.171/32 or
    192.0.2.0/24 or
    192.31.196.0/24 or
    192.52.193.0/24 or
    192.168.0.0/16 or
    192.88.99.0/24 or
    224.0.0.0/4 or
    100.64.0.0/10 or
    192.175.48.0/24 or
    198.18.0.0/15 or
    198.51.100.0/24 or
    203.0.113.0/24 or
    240.0.0.0/4 or
    "::1" or
    "FE80::/10" or
    "FF00::/8"
  )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect VNC (Virtual Network Computing) to the Internet in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(opens in a new tab or window).