← LeaderboardThe Skill Leaderboard

hunting-for-spearphishing-indicators

Hunt for spearphishing campaign indicators across email logs, endpoint telemetry, and network data to detect targeted email attacks.

Published by mukul975 ↗mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills

Try your first task

hunting-for-spearphishing-indicators

Start a fresh conversation. Replace the highlighted placeholders.

Use hunting-for-spearphishing-indicators to hunt authorized [email, endpoint, and network data sources] for spearphishing activity within [time range and investigation scope], correlate relevant findings across the available telemetry, and deliver a prioritized hunt report with evidence, confidence, risk, and recommended response actions.

Required inputs

  • [email, endpoint, and network data sources]
  • [time range and investigation scope]

User-approved starter prompt based on a pinned source version; check current skill requirements before running. Task evidence ↗

SKILL.md

name: hunting-for-spearphishing-indicatorsdescription: Hunt for spearphishing campaign indicators across email logs, endpoint  telemetry, and network data to detect targeted email attacks.domain: cybersecuritysubdomain: threat-huntingtags: - threat-hunting- mitre-attack- spearphishing- initial-access- email-security- t1566- proactive-detectionversion: '1.0'author: mahipallicense: Apache-2.0d3fend_techniques: - File Metadata Consistency Validation- Application Protocol Command Analysis- Identifier Analysis- Content Format Conversion- Message Analysisnist_csf: - DE.CM-01- DE.AE-02- DE.AE-07- ID.RA-05mitre_attack: - T1046- T1057- T1082- T1083- T1566mitre_f3:   version: '1.1'  tactics:   - reconnaissance  - initial-access  - resource-development  techniques:   - id: T1660    name: Phishing    tactic: initial-access    source: attack  - id: T1598    name: Phishing for Information    tactic: reconnaissance    source: attack  - id: T1593    name: Search Open Websites/Domains    tactic: reconnaissance    source: attack  - id: F1031    name: Impersonate Account Holder    tactic: initial-access    source: f3  - id: F1020.002    name: 'Create Fake Materials: Fake Website'    tactic: resource-development    source: f3

Hunting For Spearphishing Indicators

When to Use

  • When proactively hunting for indicators of hunting for spearphishing indicators in the environment
  • After threat intelligence indicates active campaigns using these techniques
  • During incident response to scope compromise related to these techniques
  • When EDR or SIEM alerts trigger on related indicators
  • During periodic security assessments and purple team exercises

Prerequisites

  • EDR platform with process and network telemetry (CrowdStrike, MDE, SentinelOne)
  • SIEM with relevant log data ingested (Splunk, Elastic, Sentinel)
  • Sysmon deployed with comprehensive configuration
  • Windows Security Event Log forwarding enabled
  • Threat intelligence feeds for IOC correlation

Workflow

  1. Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable hypothesis based on threat intelligence or ATT&CK gap analysis.
  2. Identify Data Sources: Determine which logs and telemetry are needed to validate or refute the hypothesis.
  3. Execute Queries: Run detection queries against SIEM and EDR platforms to collect relevant events.
  4. Analyze Results: Examine query results for anomalies, correlating across multiple data sources.
  5. Validate Findings: Distinguish true positives from false positives through contextual analysis.
  6. Correlate Activity: Link findings to broader attack chains and threat actor TTPs.
  7. Document and Report: Record findings, update detection rules, and recommend response actions.

Key Concepts

ConceptDescription
T1566.001Spearphishing Attachment
T1566.002Spearphishing Link
T1566.003Spearphishing via Service

Tools & Systems

ToolPurpose
CrowdStrike FalconEDR telemetry and threat detection
Microsoft Defender for EndpointAdvanced hunting with KQL
Splunk EnterpriseSIEM log analysis with SPL queries
Elastic SecurityDetection rules and investigation timeline
SysmonDetailed Windows event monitoring
VelociraptorEndpoint artifact collection and hunting
Sigma RulesCross-platform detection rule format

Common Scenarios

  1. Scenario 1: Macro-enabled Excel executing PowerShell downloader
  2. Scenario 2: HTML smuggling delivering ISO with LNK payload
  3. Scenario 3: Credential harvesting link as SharePoint notification
  4. Scenario 4: QR code phishing in PDF attachment

Output Format

Hunt ID: TH-HUNTIN-[DATE]-[SEQ]
Technique: T1566.001
Host: [Hostname]
User: [Account context]
Evidence: [Log entries, process trees, network data]
Risk Level: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]
Confidence: [High/Medium/Low]
Recommended Action: [Containment, investigation, monitoring]