AI Cyber Defense / Network detection, DNS and egress analytics
AI Cyber Defense: Build a baseline that preserves rare legitimate destinations
Baseline by comparable workload role and time period. Escalate new destinations when combined with sensitive data access or unexpected process behavior.
Environment and inputs: Network detection and response using resolver logs, proxy metadata, flow records and optional Zeek or Suricata sensors.
Scenario and goal
An anomaly detector may flag every new service while missing a meaningful change in a critical workload.
Why it matters
For this scenario, expect behavior to vary across destinations, timing and client software. Network metadata supports a hypothesis, while endpoint and identity records often explain the actor and purpose. Account for encryption, sampling and sensor placement before interpreting absence. A statistical anomaly, protocol fingerprint or unfamiliar domain should remain a supporting observation until its consequence and business context are established.
Evidence to collect
Retain source role, destination identity, first-seen time, connection counts and maintenance context rather than a single global popularity score.
Validate with an authorized exercise
Replay benign software-update traffic and a synthetic new destination from a restricted service; confirm the latter receives stronger triage context without automatically declaring compromise.
Rollout and checks
Preserve event time, source tuple, sensor identity and the original record identifier for every decisive observation. Verify clock alignment and collection health before joining sources. Compare a representative benign workload with the suspected behavior in a lab or stored-event replay. Adjust a detection only after documenting which observed distinction justifies the change.
Scope and limits
This guide proposes a defensive test; it is not a tested production design. Check platform support and local requirements. References explain the mechanisms but do not certify the design. Behavior alone does not prove AI involvement.