MAY THE “TI” BE WITH YOU: Connect ThreatConnect TIP with Azure Sentinel

Generally there are multiple forms of Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) categories, “Tactical TI” mainly for observables & indicators – “Strategic TI” for actors intensions, capabilities & motivations (broader trends typically meant for a non-technical audience) – “Operational TI” for techniques , tools & procedures (technical details about specific attacks and campaigns) – “OSINT” for open standard formats and many others.

To maximize the value of the threat intelligence you produce, it’s critical that you identify your use cases and define your objectives before doing anything else via following the TI Lifecyle procedure: “Planning & Direction”, “Collection”, “Processing”, “Analysis”, “Dissemination”, & “Feedback”.

Azure Sentinel provides an out-of-the-box Tactical TI connectors for indicators & observed data that lets you import – stream the threat indicators your organization is using, which can enhance your security analysts’ ability to detect and prioritize known threats. Several features from Azure Sentinel then become available or are enhanced: Analytics , Workbooks , Hunting & Notebooks.

There is a great blog post by on how to Bring your threat intelligence to Azure Sentinel with a detailed step by step guide on streaming Anomali Limo ThreatStream TAXII 2.0 via Azure Sentinel TAXII Data Connector, highly recommended to check it out!

Today our use case is how to stream ThreatConnect TI feeds to Azure Sentinel platform (SIEM + SOAR + CTI Hub) in a step-by-step guide, measure – map & hunt the streamed indicators feeds to your organization data for custom detections! , so let’s get started and follow the guide.

The integration flow via Azure Sentinel is simple: “ThreatConnect TIP” > Microsoft Security Graph API (tiIndicators) > Azure Sentinel (Threat Intelligence Platforms Data Connector)

ThreatConnect TIP is a member of Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA), hence a ready integrated app with Microsoft Graph Security enables ThreatConnect Playbook users to perform Get, Create, Update and Delete actions against the Graph TI API which is currently consumed by Azure Sentinel for alerting and monitoring.

Step (1) – Sign In to your ThreatConnect API User Connection

Type your system administrator (Organizational role) credentials, for your details about organization role

Click on settings > Org Settings

Under Membership > Create API User, then save the user account and keep the key value

Keep your Access ID & Secret key

Step (2) – Azure App Registrations

Search for App registrations > type a name for your app and click register

Under API permissions > Click Add a permission > Select Microsoft Graph

Select Application permissions > Under ThreatIndicators > Check “ThreatIndicators.ReadWrite.OwnedBy”

Click “Grant admin consent” button > Yes

Click “Certificates & secrets” > New client secret > type a description and select expires option, then Add

Keep the new registered app “Client ID”, “Secret” and Tenant ID value

Step (3) – Build the Azure Sentinel Logic App – Playbook

Under configuration > Playbooks > Add Playbook

Select subscription, resource group, type Logic App name, select location and click review & create

Select Recurrence as a trigger template:
- Type interval & frequency value
- Add new step > HTTP
  - Method: GET
  - URI:
    - ```
    https://api.threatconnect.com/v2/indicators?owner=Common%20CommunityHTTP/1.1
```
- Headers:
  - API_SECRET: type API Secret value
  - API_ID: type API ID value
- Queries:
  - modified_since: addDays(utcNow(),-1)
  - types: URL, hostname, domain, IPv4
- Then run the API for body sample to parse and keep the body value

Noting that here’s a list of the out of the box ThreatConnect Indicators types

Add new step > select Data Operations > Parse JSON under actions
- Content: Add dynamic content > Body
- Schema: Paste the copied sample body

Now lets add a step to send data to security graph, choose Control and select Switch
- On: Type
- Case: URL

Under “Case” > Add an action
- Method: POST
- URI: https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/security/tiIndicators
- Headers:
  - Key: content-type
  - Value: application/json
- Body:

{
“action”: “alert”,
“activityGroupNames”: [],
“confidence”: 0,
“description”: “OTX Threat Indicator –
@{items(‘For_each’)?[‘type’]}”,
“expirationDateTime”: “@{addDays(utcNow(),7)}”,
“externalId”: “@{items(‘For_each’)?[‘id’]}”,
“killChain”: [],
“malwareFamilyNames”: [],
“severity”: 0,
“tags”: [],
“targetProduct”: “Azure Sentinel”,
“threatType”: “WatchList”,
“tlpLevel”: “white”,
“url”: “@{items(‘For_each’)?[‘indicator’]}”
}

Check “Authentication”
- Authentication type: Active Directory OAuth
- Tenant: type Azure tenant ID
- Audience: https://graph.microsoft.com
- Client ID: Azure App registrations Client ID value
- Credential Type: Secret
- Secret: Azure App registrations Secret value