DNS lookup for paste service

Goal

Paste sites such as pastebin.com can be used by attackers to host malicious scripts, configuration files, and other text data. The files are then downloaded to the host using a network utility such as wget or curl. These sites may also be used to exfiltrate data.

Strategy

Detect when a process performs a DNS lookup for a paste site.

Triage and response

  1. Check if the application {{@process.executable.name}} is expected to make connections to {{@dns.question.name}}.
  2. If the DNS lookup is unexpected, contain the host or container and roll back to a known good configuration.
  3. Follow your organization’s internal processes for investigating and remediating compromised systems.

Requires Agent version 7.36 or greater