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First Seen External MQTT Broker Connection

Identifies the first MQTT relationship from an internal source to an external broker that was not observed during the previous 14 days. MQTT is commonly used by IoT and messaging applications, but malware including…

Description

Identifies the first MQTT relationship from an internal source to an external broker that was not observed during the previous 14 days. MQTT is commonly used by IoT and messaging applications, but malware including BambooToken, IOCONTROL, MQsTTang, and WailingCrab has used publish/subscribe traffic for command and control.

Detection logic

Its licence does not clear it for publishing here

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Detection requirements

Platform
ESXiLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesWindows

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

Log source category
event_index

Known benign triggers

  • New or infrequently used IoT devices, telemetry agents, application messaging services, test environments, and broker migrations can create legitimate first-seen relationships. Sensor onboarding or retention gaps can also cause existing relationships to appear new.

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