RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) from the Internet

Last updated a year ago on 2025-01-15

Created 6 years ago on 2020-02-18

About

This rule detects network events that may indicate the use of RDP traffic from the Internet. RDP 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

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

Lateral Movement (TA0008)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Remote Services (T1021)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Initial Access (TA0001)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Some network security policies allow RDP directly from the Internet but usage that is unfamiliar to server or network owners can be unexpected and suspicious. RDP services may be exposed directly to the Internet in some networks such as cloud environments. In such cases, only RDP gateways, bastions or jump servers may be expected expose RDP directly to the Internet and can be exempted from this rule. RDP may be required by some work-flows such as remote access and support for specialized software products and servers. Such work-flows are usually known and not unexpected.

License

Elastic License v2(external, 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(external, opens in a new tab or window)

panw(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗(event.dataset: network_traffic.flow or (event.category: (network or network_traffic))) and
  network.transport:tcp and (destination.port:3389 or event.dataset:zeek.rdp) and
  not source.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"
  ) and
  destination.ip:(
    10.0.0.0/8 or
    172.16.0.0/12 or
    192.168.0.0/16
  )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) from 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(external, opens in a new tab or window).