Active Scanning: Wordlist Scanning T1595.003

Tactic: Reconnaissance

Adversaries may iteratively probe infrastructure using brute-forcing and crawling techniques. While this technique employs similar methods to Brute Force, its goal is the identification of content and infrastructure rather than the discovery of valid credentials. Wordlists used in these scans may contain generic, commonly used names and file extensions or terms specific to a particular software. Adversaries may also create custom, target-specific wordlists using data gathered from other Reconnaissance techniques (ex: Gather Victim Org Information, or Search Victim-Owned Websites).

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 8 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (21 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
Esql.event_count4gt 3, lt 150, 5, 500
http.response.status_code3in 2, eq 1200, 403, 404, 500, 502
Esql.url_original_count_distinct2gt 210, 250
http.request.method2eq 2GET
Esql.any_payload_keyword_max1eq 11
Esql.authz_forbid_count1ge 11
Esql.document_count1lt 150
Esql.http_response_status_code_count1gt 110
Esql.kubernetes_audit_objectRef_resource_count_distinct1gt 13
Esql.kubernetes_audit_requestURI_count_distinct1gt 15
Esql.not_found_count1ge 13
Esql.status_fail_count1ge 11
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lower1contains 1, eq 1, starts_with 1acunetix, arachni, burp
EventType1in 1ProcessRollup2, exec, exec_event
event.type1eq 1start

Top indicator values (156 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
Esql.event_countgt
50
22
Esql.event_countgt
500
1
http.request.methodeq
GET
26
Esql.any_payload_keyword_maxeq
1
1
Esql.authz_forbid_countge
1
1
Esql.document_countlt
50
1
Esql.event_countlt
5
15
Esql.http_response_status_code_countgt
10
1
Esql.kubernetes_audit_objectRef_resource_count_distinctgt
3
12
Esql.kubernetes_audit_requestURI_count_distinctgt
5
12
Esql.not_found_countge
3
1
Esql.status_fail_countge
1
1
Esql.url_original_count_distinctgt
10
1
Esql.url_original_count_distinctgt
250
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
acunetix
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
arachni
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
burp
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
dirsearch
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
hydra
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
nessus
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
nmap
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
openvas
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
skipfish
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
w3af
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowercontains
zap
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowereq
mozilla/4.0 (compatible; msie 6.0; windows nt 5.1)
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowereq
mozilla/4.0 (compatible; msie 8.0; windows nt 5.1; trident/4.0)
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowereq
mozilla/5.0 (windows nt 10.0; win64; x64) applewebkit/537.36 (khtml, like...
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowereq
mozilla/5.0 (windows nt 10.0; win64; x64) applewebkit/537.36 (khtml, like...
1
Esql.user_agent_original_to_lowerstarts_with
dirbuster
1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Elastic 8 rules