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SMTP to the Internet on Port 26/TCP

This rule detects events that may indicate use of SMTP on TCP port 26 from an internal host to an external destination. This port is commonly used by several popular mail transfer agents to deconflict with the…

Description

This rule detects events that may indicate use of SMTP on TCP port 26 from an internal host to an external destination. This port is commonly used by several popular mail transfer agents to deconflict with the default SMTP port 25. This port has also been used by a malware family called BadPatch for command and control of Windows systems. The rule is scoped to outbound traffic (internal source to external destination) to focus on the command and control and exfiltration use cases, rather than benign internal mail relays or unrelated transit traffic observed by the sensor.

Detection logic

Its licence does not clear it for publishing here

Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.

Detection requirements

Platform
ESXiIaaSLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesOffice SuiteSaaSWindows

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 3 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.

Log source category
event_index

Known benign triggers

  • Internal hosts that legitimately send mail to external mail transfer agents listening on TCP port 26 may cause false positives. Mail servers or applications with known external SMTP relays can be excluded by source or destination IP address as this is expected behavior.

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