Broadcom Symantec Endpoint Protection (via SIEM) Detection Strategy

Product Overview

Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) is an enterprise-grade software suite that provides comprehensive endpoint security for various devices like laptops, desktops, and servers. SEP integrates multiple layers of protection including anti-malware), intrusion prevention (IPS), firewall, application control, device control, and exploit prevention to defend against a wide range of cyber threats. It is managed through a centralized console, allowing organizations to deploy, configure, and monitor security policies across their entire endpoint fleet.

Detection Strategy for Endpoint Integrations

Detection

Our endpoint detection strategy focuses on two common signal types: process and network events. By integrating directly with EDR vendors, we can process security alerts to extract evidence and normalize event details. These normalized signals are then processed through our detection engine to look for signs of post-exploitation activity.

In addition to categorical handling of vendors' security alerts, Expel maintains a large library of behavioral detections to augment vendor detections. When a threat is detected, our automated response bot, Ruxie, takes action by enriching evidence fields with first- and third-party threat intelligence. Additional Ruxie actions query a wide span of technologies directly to arm analysts with key pieces of investigative information and related events.

Response

Endpoints provide rich context for processes and also support other types of Expel Alerts. For example, we use source device identification across a number of alert types when a source IP or hostname is available, because it provides rich context about the actor behind the activity.

Additionally, endpoints provide valuable information for network alerts to help identify what process triggered a connection.

To learn more about our overall approach to detection strategy, see About Detection Strategy.

What We Support for Symantec Endpoint Protection (via SIEM)

To see a comprehensive list of the most up-to-date Expel detection rules, vendor detection rules, opt-in detections, and available DUETs (did you expect this) that we support for Symantec Endpoint Protection (via SIEM), you can visit the Detections page in Workbench or ask your Sales or Support rep for the most recent download.

Supported versions	Endpoint Protection 11 to 14
Supported platforms	Windows Linux MacOS Splunk
Symantec Endpoint Protection (via SIEM) detection rules support	Yes.
Detection rules written by Expel	No.
Investigative support through Workbench	No. We access the console directly with an "Investigator" role account.
Hunting support	No. Hunting is not currently available for this integration.

Additional Details and Common Questions

Console Access

A vendor alert does not typically include all of the contextual timeline activity surrounding the event of interest. Because this integration does not allow us to get all necessary data via the API, we will ask you for a certain level of console access during onboarding.

The level of access that we require is meant to support essential triage and research activities, and to help us determine the vector and extent of attacker activity for an identified threat. At minimum, we will ask for visibility into alert data, timeline events recorded, and live response/real time response shell (if applicable).

DUET

A DUET (did you expect this) rule flags certain events as needing an immediate verification or notification, and bypasses the normal internal event triage process. The events subject to DUET rules contain behaviors that are not typically indicative of true security incidents, as they are related to policy violations or potential risk.

There are a number of workflows that a DUET may follow. When enabled, the activity will be flagged for investigation and will be routed to you (rather than to us) to take a specified first action. To see the specific DUET rules currently supported for this integration, visit the Detections page in Workbench.