GitHub anomalous bot org activity

This rule is part of a beta feature. To learn more, contact Support.

Goal

Detect when anomalous organizational activity is occurring from a bot account inside the GitHub organization.

Strategy

This rule monitors GitHub audit logs for when a bot takes an action outside of Git operations and pull requests.

Triage and response

  1. Assess the bot’s behavior:
  • Review audit logs to determine if the bot’s activity is out of character.

  • Check for anomalies in the bot’s access patterns:

    • Is the @actor_location.country_code unexpected or different from typical locations?
    • Does the @http.useragent or @network.client.ip differ from usual activity?
    • Verify whether the @network.client.geoip.as.domain or IP address aligns with known bot activity.
  • Contact the bot owner to confirm if the bot should be performing these actions, especially from the observed user agent or IP address.

  1. If suspicious activity is confirmed:
  • Immediately block the bot in GitHub to prevent further unauthorized actions. Block the user in GitHub
  • Initiate your organization’s incident response process to further investigate the scope of the compromise and assess potential damage.
  • Consider reviewing any additional logs or access tokens used by the bot to determine if further unauthorized actions have occurred.
  1. Follow-up actions:
  • Reset the bot’s authentication credentials and ensure that no unauthorized tokens or credentials have been issued.
  • Notify relevant stakeholders, including security teams and the bot owner, to provide updates on the investigation.