2025-08-05 –, Firenze
The SIGMA rules' are an agnostic, text-based, open signature format written in YAML for creating threat detections, developed and open-sourced in 2017 by Florian Roth and Thomas Patzke. The project was conceived to address the challenges facing analysts when sharing and translating rule logic across the various SIEMs and EDRs tools.
This talk will cover how we have implemented the gift of SIGMAs in our hunting workflow to assist with sniffing out gremlins hiding in the network. Showing how SIGMAs can be used to create "guided hunts", using one logic that is translated into various query languages. The logic can be tuned as needed to a specific environment, then rules deemed production ready can be deployed as permanent detections. The goal is to share our process to help organizations who are looking to mature their hunting programs.
"The Gremlin Hunter" project was developed as a way to solve the challenges our hunters had of searching in a consistent way, that we could track, and then action that information to produce actionable intelligence. My team developed a process modeled on a "guided" hunt framework, following the Intelligence Lifecycle. The hunts are developed using OSINT and internal research from our CTI team, put into the SIGMA rule format, then inputted into our MISP instance, where we use pySIGMA to process and translate the rules. The rules are then sent over to our ticketing system where they are distributed to the hunting team.
The hunt team takes the queries that are translated and tests them in the environments, running them to hunt for whatever evil it is they are looking for. Final queries that are deemed production worthy are submitted to our engineering team to deploy as permanent detections.
Demo will include showing our guided hunt workflow setup as well as demonstrating the process we used to create a SIGMA rule to hunt for a particular threat or activity. I am thinking of submitting another submission for a 4 hr hands on training for SIGMA rules where I would go more in-depth on the process.
Avatar of Gremlin Hunter is art by Phil Cho https://www.philchoart.com/featured/2020/11/13/gizmo-gremlin-hunter-earth-27-commission
Gremlin hunter, kitten and puppy wrangler, snickers fan.
Came into the field of cybersecurity a bit later in life after shifting into the field from a background in philosophy, psychology, and conflict resolution, which have given me a unique perspective.
I enjoy solving puzzles and scavenger hunts, so this kinda work suits me well.
I started in cyber in late 2016 and have been working in the field ever since. I have worked for a few state government agencies doing a bit of everything, security administration, awareness training, vulnerability testing, and incident response. I moved to the private sector and I am now working for a company that supports both public and private sector customers.
My roles have included SOC analyst tier I and II, and now I work with my company's Cyber Threat Intelligence team as a cyber threat analyst and cybersecurity content engineer.