Contents

Introduction

WSA - WebBase Network Participation

ESA - SenderBase Network Participation

General Security Concerns FAQ

Operation

SenderBase (Email) Network Participation

Statistics shared per Emailappliance

Statistics shared per IP address

Statistics Shared per SDS Client

AMP SBNP telemetry data

WebBase (Web) Network Participation

Statistics shared per web request

Advanced Malware Statistics per web request

End User Feedback statistics feed

Example data provided – Standard participation

Example data provided – Limited participation

Full WBNP Decode

Statistics shared per web request

Advanced Malware Statistics per web request

End User Feedback statistics feed

Talos Detection Content

Threat Focused

Related Information

Introduction

The Cisco Web and Email Content Security products can provide telemetry data back to Cisco and Talos to increase the efficacy of web categorization in the Web Security Appliance (WSA) and connecting IP reputation for the Email Security Appliance (ESA).

The telemetry data is provided for the WSA and ESA on an 'opt-in' basis.

The data is transmitted via binary encoded SSL encrypted packets. The included attachments provide insight into the data, specific formatting and descriptions for the data that is being transmitted.  WebBase Network Participation (WBNP) and SenderBase Network Participation (SBNP) data is not viewable in a direct log or file format.  This data is transmitted in encrypted form.  At no time is this data 'at rest'.

WSA - WebBase Network Participation

Cisco recognizes the importance of maintaining your privacy, and does not collect or use personal or confidential information such as usernames and passphrases. Additionally, the file names and URL attributes included with the hostname are obfuscated to ensure confidentiality.

When it comes to decrypted HTTPS transactions, the SensorBase Network only receives the IP address, web reputation score, and URL category of the server name in the certificate.

For complete information, please review the WSA User Guide for the version of AsyncOS for Web Security currently running on your appliance.  Please see "The Cisco SensorBase Network" in the User Guide.

ESA - SenderBase Network Participation

Customers participating in the SenderBase Network allow Cisco to collect aggregated email traffic statistics about their organization, increasing the utility of the service for all who use it. Participation is voluntary. Cisco only collects summary data on message attributes and information about how different types of messages were handled by Cisco appliances. For example, Cisco does not collect the message body or the message subject. Personally identifiable information and information that identifies your organization is kept confidential.

For complete information, please review the ESA User Guide for the version of AsyncOS for ESA Security currently running on your appliance.  Please see the "SenderBase Network Participation" chapter in the User Guide.

General Security Concerns FAQ

Question:

Where is the data collected stored?

Answer:

Appliance telemetry is stored in Cisco US-based data centers.

Question:

Who has access to the data collected and stored?

Answer:

Access is limited to Cisco SBG personnel who analyze/use the data to create actionable intelligence.

Question:

What is the retention time of the data collected?

Answer:

There is no data retention/expiration policy regarding appliance telemetry. Data can be kept indefinitely or can be deleted for various reasons including but not limited to down-sampling/aggregation, storage management, age, relevance to current/future threats, and so on.

Question:

Are customer serial number(s) or public IP address(es) stored in the Talos categorization database?

Answer:

No, only URL and categories are retained. The WBNP packet does not contain source IP information.

Operation

This section details operation, the type of data (by description), and a sample data to demonstrate the information that would be transmitted:

- SBNP -  Specific data types (fields) and sample data related to Email Security

- WBNP - Specific data types (fields) and sample data related to Web Security

- Threat Detection Operation - General overview of Threat Detection from a operational perspective

SenderBase (Email) Network Participation

Statistics shared per Emailappliance

Item

Sample Data

MGA Identifier

MGA 10012

Timestamp

Data from 8 AM to 8:05 AM on July 1, 2005

Software Version Numbers

MGA Version 4.7.0

Rule Set Version Numbers

Anti-Spam Rule Set 102

Anti-virus Update Interval

Updates every 10 minutes

Quarantine Size

500 MB

Quarantine Message Count

50 messages currently in quarantine

Virus Score Threshold

Send messages to quarantine at threat level 3 or higher

Sum of Virus Scores for messages entering quarantine

120

Count of messages entering quarantine

30 (yields average score of 4)

Maximum quarantine time

12 hours

Count of Outbreak quarantine messages broken down by why they entered and exited quarantine, correlated with Anti-Virus result

50 entering quarantine due to .exe rule
30 leaving quarantine due to manual release, and all
30 were virus positive

Count of Outbreak quarantine messages broken down by what action was taken upon leaving quarantine

10 messages had attachments stripped after leaving quarantine

Sum of time messages were held in quarantine

20 hours

Statistics shared per IP address

Item

Sample Data

Standard Participation

Limited Participation

Message count at various stages within the appliance

Seen by Anti-Virus engine: 100

Seen by Anti-Spam engine: 80

Sum of Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus scores and verdicts

2,000 (sum of anti-spam scores for all messages seen)

Number of messages hitting different Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus rule combinations

100 messages hit rules A and B

50 messages hit rule A only

Number of Connections

20 SMTP Connections

Number of Total and Invalid Recipients

50 total recipients

10 invalid recipients

Hashed Filename(s): (a)

A file <one-way-hash>.pif was found inside an archive attachment called <one-way-hash>.zip.

Unobfuscated Filename

Hashed Filename

Obfuscated Filename(s): (b)

A file aaaaaaa0.aaa.pif was found inside a file aaaaaaa.zip.

Unobfuscated Filename

Obfuscated Filename

URL Hostname (c)

There was a link found inside a message to www.domain.com

Unobfuscated URL Hostname

Obfuscated URL Hostname

Obfuscated URL Path (d)

There was a link found inside a message to hostname www.domain.com, and had path aaa000aa/aa00aaa.

Unobfuscated URL Path

Obfuscated URL Path

Number of Messages by Spam and Virus Scanning Results

10 Spam Positive

10 Spam Negative

5 Spam Suspect

4 Virus Positive

16 Virus Negative

5 Virus Unscannable

Number of messages by different Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus verdicts

500 spam, 300 ham

Count of Messages in Size Ranges

125 in 30K-35K range

Count of different extension types

300 “.exe” attachments

Correlation of attachment types, true file type, and container type

100 attachments that have a “.doc” extension but are actually “.exe”

50 attachments are “.exe” extensions within a zip

Correlation of extension and true file type with attachment size

30 attachments were “.exe” within the 50-55K range

Number of messages by Stochastic Sampling results

14 messages skipped sampling

25 messages queued for sampling

50 messages scanned from sampling

Number of messages that have failed DMARC verification

34 messages have failed DMARC verification

Notes:

(a) Filenames are encoded in a 1-way hash (MD5).

(b) Filenames are sent in an obfuscated form, with all lowercase ASCII letters ([a-z]) replaced with “a,” all uppercase ASCII letters ([A-Z]) replaced with “A,” any multi-byte UTF-8 characters replaced with “x” (to provide privacy for other character sets), all ASCII digits ([0-9]) replaced.

(c) URL hostnames point to a web server providing content, much as an IP address does. No confidential information, such as usernames and passwords, are included.

(d) URL information included with the hostname is obfuscated to ensure that any personal information of the user is not revealed.

Statistics Shared per SDS Client

Item

Sample Data

TimeStamp

Client version

Number of requests made to the Client

Number of requests made from the SDS Client

Time results for DNS Lookups

Server response time results

Time to establish connection to server

Number of connections established

Number of concurrent open connections to server

Number of service requests to WBRS

Number of requests which hit local WBRS cache

Size of local WBRS cache

Response time results from remote WBRS

AMP SBNP telemetry data

Format

Sample Data

amp_verdicts' : { ("verdict", "spyname", "score", "uploaded", "file_name"),

("verdict", "spyname", "score", "uploaded", "file_name"),

("verdict", "spyname", "score", "uploaded", "file_name"),

……….

("verdict", "spyname", "score", "uploaded", "file_name"),

}

Description

Verdict - of the AMP reputation query

malicious/clean/unknown

Spyname- Name of the malware detected

[Trojan-Test]

Score - AMP assigned reputation score

[1-100]

Upload - AMP cloud indicated to upload the file

1

File Name - Name of the file attachment

abcd.pdf

WebBase (Web) Network Participation

Statistics shared per web request

Item

Sample Data

Standard Participation

Limited Participation

Version

coeus 7.7.0-608

Serial Number

SBNP sampling factor (Volume)

SBNP sampling factor (Rate)

1

Destination IP & Port

unobfuscated URL path segments

hashed URL path segments

Anti-Spyware chosen malware category

Skipped

WBRS Score

4.7

McAfee malware category verdict

Referer URL

unobfuscated URL path segments

hashed URL path segments

Content Type ID

ACL Decision Tag

0

Legacy Web Categorization

CIWUC Web Category and decision source

{'src': 'req', 'cat': '1026'}

AVC App Name

Ads and Tracking

AVC App Type

Ad Networks

AVC App Behavior

Unsafe

Internal AVC Result Tracking

[0,1,1,1]

User agent tracking via indexed data structure

3

Advanced Malware Statistics per web request

AMP Statistics

Verdict - of the AMP reputation query

malicious/clean/unknown

Spyname- Name of the malware detected

[Trojan-Test]

Score - AMP assigned reputation score

[1-100]

Upload - AMP cloud indicated to upload the file

1

File Name - Name of the file attachment

abcd.pdf

End User Feedback statistics feed

Statistics Shared per End User Miscategorization Feedback

Item

Sample Data

Engine ID (numeric)

0

Legacy Web Categorization code

CIWUC Web Categorization Source

‘resp’ / ‘req’

CIWUC Web Category

1026

Example data provided – Standard participation

# categorized

"http://google.com/": {    "wbrs": "5.8",

"fs": {

"src": "req",

"cat": "1020"

},

}

# uncategorized

"http://fake.example.com": {    "fs": {

"cat": "-"

},

}

Example data provided – Limited participation

- Original request from client: www.gunexams.com/Non-Restricted-FREE-Practice-Exams

- Message logged (in telemetry server): http://www.gunexams.com/76bd845388e0

Full WBNP Decode

Statistics Shared per Cisco Appliance

Item

Sample Data

Version

coeus 7.7.0-608

Serial number

0022190B6ED5-XYZ1YZ2

Model

S660

Webroot enabled

1

AVC enabled

1

Sophos enabled

0

Response Side Categorization enabled

1

Anti-Spyware Engine enabled

default-2001005008

Anti-Spyware SSE version

default-2001005008

Anti-Spyware Spycat Definitions version

default-8640

Anti-Spyware URL Blocklist DAT version

Anti-Spyware URL Phishing DAT version

Anti-Spyware Cookies DAT version

Anti-Spyware Domain Blocking enabled

0

Anti-Spyware Threat Risk Threshold

90

McAfee enabled

0

McAfee Engine version

McAfee DAT version

default-5688

WBNP Detail Level

2

WBRS Engine version

freebsd6-i386-300036

WBRS component versions

categories=v2-1337979188,ip=default-1379460997,keyword=v2-1312487822,prefixcat=v2-1379460670,rule=default-1358979215

WBRS Blocklist Threshold

-6

WBRS Allowlist Threshold

6

WBRS enabled

1

Secure Mobility enabled

0

L4 Traffic Monitor enabled

0

L4 Traffic Monitor Blocklist version

default-0

L4 Traffic Monitor Admin Blocklist

L4 Traffic Monitor Admin Blocklist ports

L4 Traffic Monitor Allowlist

L4 Traffic Monitor Allowlist ports

SBNP sampling factor

0.25

SBNP sampling factor (Volume)

0.1

SurfControl SDK version (legacy)

default-0

SurfControl Full Database version (legacy)

default-0

SurfControl Local Incremental Accumulation file version (legacy)

default-0

Firestone Engine version

default-210016

Firestone DAT version

v2-310003

AVC Engine version

default-110076

AVC DAT version

default-1377556980

Sophos Engine version

default-1310963572

Sophos DAT version

default-0

Adaptive Scanning enabled

0

Adaptive Scanning Risk Score Threshold

[10, 6, 3]

Adaptive Scanning Load Factor Threshold

[5, 3, 2]

SOCKS enabled

0

Total Transactions

Total Transactions

Total Allowed Transactions

Total Malware Detected Transactions

Total Transactions blocked by Admin Policy

Total Transactions blocked by WBRS Score

Total High Risk Transactions

Total Transactions detected by Traffic Monitor

Total Transactions with IPv6 clients

Total Transactions with IPv6 servers

Total Transactions using SOCKS proxy

Total Transactions from remote users

Total Transactions from local users

Total Transactions allowed using SOCKS proxy

Total Transactions from local users allowed using SOCKS proxy

Total transactions from remote users allowed using SOCKS proxy

Total transactions blocked using SOCKS proxy

Total transactions from local users blocked using SOCKS proxy

Total transactions from remote users blocked using SOCKS proxy

Seconds since last restart

2843349

CPU Utilization (%)

9.9

RAM Utilization (%)

55.6

Hard Disk Utilization (%)

57.5

Bandwidth Utilization (/sec)

15307

Open TCP connections

2721

Transactions per second

264

Client Latency

163

Cache Hit Rate

21

Proxy CPU Utilization

17

WBRS WUC CPU Utilization

2.5

Logging CPU Utilization

3.4

Reporting CPU Utilization

3.9

Webroot CPU Utilization

0

Sophos CPU Utilization

0

McAfee CPU Utilization

0

vmstat utility output (vmstat –z, vmstat –m)

Number of access policies configured

32

Number of configured custom web categories

32

Authentication Provider

Basic, NTLMSSP

Authentication Realms

Authentication Provider Hostname, Protocol & other configuration elements

Statistics shared per web request

Item

Sample Data

Standard Participation

Limited Participation

Version

coeus 7.7.0-608

Serial Number

SBNP sampling factor (Volume)

SBNP sampling factor (Rate)

1

Destination IP & Port

unobfuscated URL path segments

hashed URL path segments

Anti-Spyware chosen malware category

Skipped

WBRS Score

4.7

McAfee malware category verdict

Referer URL

unobfuscated URL path segments

hashed URL path segments

Content Type ID

ACL Decision Tag

0

Legacy Web Categorization

CIWUC Web Category and decision source

{'src': 'req', 'cat': '1026'}

AVC App Name

Ads and Tracking

AVC App Type

Ad Networks

AVC App Behavior

Unsafe

Internal AVC Result Tracking

[0,1,1,1]

User agent tracking via indexed data structure

3

Advanced Malware Statistics per web request

AMP Statistics

Verdict - of the AMP reputation query

malicious/clean/unknown

Spyname- Name of the malware detected

[Trojan-Test]

Score - AMP assigned reputation score

[1-100]

Upload - AMP cloud indicated to upload the file

1

File Name - Name of the file attachment

abcd.pdf

End User Feedback statistics feed

Statistics Shared per End User Miscategorization Feedback

Item

Sample Data

Engine ID (numeric)

0

Legacy Web Categorization code

CIWUC Web Categorization Source

‘resp’ / ‘req’

CIWUC Web Category

1026

Talos Detection Content

Threat Focused

Related Information

- Cisco Web Security Appliance - Product Page

- Cisco Email Security Appliance - Product Page

- Technical Support & Documentation - Cisco Systems