AI Cyber Defense / Network detection, DNS and egress analytics
AI Cyber Defense: Validate Zeek sensor completeness before hunting
Map sensors to network paths and alert when expected telemetry stops. Keep an independent source such as firewall flow logs for important boundaries.
Environment and inputs: Network detection and response using resolver logs, proxy metadata, flow records and optional Zeek or Suricata sensors.
Scenario and goal
A missing connection record can reflect packet loss or sensor placement rather than absence of attacker activity.
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
Inspect sensor health, capture loss, monitored links and the availability of connection and protocol logs for the investigated period.
Validate with an authorized exercise
Send a harmless lab transaction across a monitored link and verify its records; then feed a sensor-gap fixture and confirm the investigation shows the interval as unknown.
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.