Detection: GitHub Enterprise Remove Organization

Updated Date: 2025-01-16 ID: 94cb89aa-aec1-4585-91b1-affcdacf357e Author: Patrick Bareiss, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects when a user removes an organization from GitHub Enterprise. The detection monitors GitHub Enterprise audit logs for organization deletion events, which could indicate unauthorized removal of critical business resources. For a SOC, identifying organization removals is crucial as it may signal account compromise, insider threats, or malicious attempts to disrupt business operations by deleting entire organizational structures. The impact could be severe, potentially resulting in loss of source code, repositories, team structures, access controls, and other critical organizational assets. This disruption could halt development workflows, cause data loss, and require significant effort to restore from backups if available. Additionally, unauthorized organization removal could be part of a larger attack campaign aimed at destroying or compromising enterprise assets.

1`github_enterprise` action=business.remove_organization 
2| fillnull 
3| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by actor, actor_id, actor_is_bot, actor_location.country_code, business, business_id, org, org_id, user_agent, action 
4| eval user=actor 
5| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
6| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
7| `github_enterprise_remove_organization_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_remove_organization_filter search *
github_enterprise_remove_organization_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
T1485 Data Destruction Impact
T1195 Supply Chain Compromise Initial Access
Actions on Objectives
Delivery
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:

$user$ removed an organization from GitHub Enterprise

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