Detection: GitHub Enterprise Disable Dependabot

Updated Date: 2025-01-14 ID: 787dd1c1-eb3a-4a31-8e8c-2ad24b214bc8 Author: Patrick Bareiss, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects when a user disables Dependabot security features within a GitHub repository. Dependabot helps automatically identify and fix security vulnerabilities in dependencies. The detection monitors GitHub Enterprise logs for configuration changes that disable Dependabot functionality. This behavior could indicate an attacker attempting to prevent the automatic detection of vulnerable dependencies, which would allow them to exploit known vulnerabilities that would otherwise be patched. For a SOC, identifying the disabling of security features like Dependabot is critical as it may be a precursor to supply chain attacks where attackers exploit vulnerable dependencies. The impact could be severe if vulnerabilities remain unpatched, potentially leading to code execution, data theft, or other compromises through the software supply chain.

1`github_enterprise` action=repository_vulnerability_alerts.disable 
2| fillnull 
3| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by actor, actor_id, actor_ip, actor_is_bot, actor_location.country_code, business, business_id, org, org_id, repo, repo_id, user, user_agent, user_id, action 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `github_enterprise_disable_dependabot_filter`

Data Source

Name Platform Sourcetype Source
GitHub Enterprise Audit Logs N/A 'httpevent' 'http:github'

Macros Used

Name Value
github_enterprise source=http:github sourcetype=httpevent
github_enterprise_disable_dependabot_filter search *
github_enterprise_disable_dependabot_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK
+ Kill Chain Phases
+ NIST
+ CIS
- Threat Actors
ID Technique Tactic
T1562.001 Disable or Modify Tools Defense Evasion
T1195 Supply Chain Compromise Initial Access
Delivery
Exploitation
DE.AE
CIS 13

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting Value
Disabled true
Cron Schedule 0 * * * *
Earliest Time -70m@m
Latest Time -10m@m
Schedule Window auto
Creates Risk Event True
This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

You must ingest GitHub Enterprise logs using Audit log streaming as described in this documentation https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-cloud@latest/admin/monitoring-activity-in-your-enterprise/reviewing-audit-logs-for-your-enterprise/streaming-the-audit-log-for-your-enterprise#setting-up-streaming-to-splunk using a Splunk HTTP Event Collector.

Known False Positives

unknown

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Dependabot security features are disabled in repository $repo$ by $user$

Risk Object Risk Object Type Risk Score Threat Objects
user user 25 user_agent

References

Detection Testing

Test Type Status Dataset Source Sourcetype
Validation ✅ Passing N/A N/A N/A
Unit ✅ Passing Dataset http:github httpevent
Integration ✅ Passing Dataset http:github httpevent

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 1