False positive - Threat ID 86672 - NewPOSThing Command and Control Traffic Detection

[Adrian_Jensen]

Has anyone seen critical alerts for this threat? It was added as a new signature yesterday in Apps&Threats release 8626-7624. We immediately had an alert for it for traffic to hxxps://www.riddle.com/ws/connect/5  So far it looks like a false positive. Riddle.com appears to be a legitimate "add a riddle/quiz to your website" marketing firm with embedded code on various third parties sites. Still evaluating.

[ymiyashita]

Hi @Adrian_Jensen,

Can it be reproduced at will? If so, I'd suggest collecting a threat pcap on the firewall (or at least something that shows the POST data) and then open a case with Palo Alto Networks support.

Reference:
HOW TO ENABLE THREAT PACKET CAPTURE FOR A SPECIFIC ANTI-SPYWARE SIGNATURE?
https://knowledgebase.paloaltonetworks.com/KCSArticleDetail?id=kA10g000000PLMfCAO

Hi @02Harris,
Are you seeing the issue with the exact same URL (hxxps://www.riddle[.]com/ws/connect/5)?

[Adrian_Jensen]

Unfortunately not. There were multiple HTTPS requests to riddle.com at the same time, only one of which was flagged. I spent a couple hours digging thru the logs and testing URLs but was unable to replicate or determine the exact web arguments given that caused the alert. I suspect the end user was surfing on a different website at the time with included riddle.com webcode (embedded quiz or something), but wasn't able to determine exactly which site. Scan's of the user's PC didn't turn up anything and so far the alert has not reoccurred. $DAYJOB is highly sensitive to POS and credit card handling, so the alert threw up a lot of red flags.