This page contains a list of the detection services, sometimes also referred to as security sources, that Security Command Center uses to detect security issues in your cloud environments.
When these services detect an issue, they generate a finding, which is a record that identifies the security issue and provides you with the information you need to prioritize and resolve the issue.
You can view findings in the Google Cloud console and filter them in many different ways, such as by finding type, resource type, or for a specific asset. Each security source might provide more filters to help you organize your findings.
The IAM roles for Security Command Center can be granted at the organization, folder, or project level. Your ability to view, edit, create, or update findings, assets, and security sources depends on the level for which you are granted access. To learn more about Security Command Center roles, see Access control.
Vulnerability detection services
Vulnerability detection services include built-in and integrated services that detect software vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and posture violations in your cloud environments. Collectively, these types of security issues are referred to as vulnerabilities.
GKE security posture dashboard
The GKE security posture dashboard is a page in the Google Cloud console that provides you with opinionated, actionable findings about potential security issues in your GKE clusters.
If you enable any of the following GKE security posture dashboard features, you'll see the findings in the Security Command Center Standard tier or the Premium tier:
GKE security posture dashboard feature | Security Command Center finding class |
---|---|
Workload configuration auditing | MISCONFIGURATION |
VULNERABILITY |
The findings display information about the security issue and provide recommendations to resolve the issues in your workloads or clusters.
View GKE security posture dashboard findings in the Google Cloud console
Go to the Security Command Center Findings page in the Google Cloud console:
Select your Google Cloud project or organization.
In the Quick filters pane, in the Source display name section, select GKE Security Posture. If you don't see the GKE Security Posture filter, there are no active findings.
IAM recommender
IAM recommender issues recommendations that you can follow to improve security by removing or replacing IAM roles from principals when the roles contain IAM permissions that the principal does not need.
Enable or disable IAM recommender findings
To enable or disable IAM recommender findings in Security Command Center, follow these steps:
Go to the Integrated services tab of the Security Command Center Settings page in the Google Cloud console:
If necessary, scroll down to the IAM recommender entry.
To the right of the entry, select Enable or Disable.
Findings from IAM recommender are classified as vulnerabilities.
To remediate an IAM recommender finding, expand the following section to see a table of the IAM recommender findings. The remediation steps for each finding are included in the table entry.
View IAM recommender findings in the console
In the Google Cloud console, you can view the findings that are issued by IAM recommender either on the Vulnerabilities page by selecting the IAM recommender query preset or on the Findings page by selecting IAM Recommender in the Source display name section of the Quick filters panel.
Mandiant Attack Surface Management
Mandiant is a world leader in frontline threat intelligence. Mandiant Attack Surface Management identifies vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in your external attack surfaces to help you stay up-to-date against the latest cyber attacks.
Mandiant Attack Surface Management is automatically enabled when you activate the Security Command Center Enterprise tier and findings are available in the Google Cloud console.
For information about how the standalone Mandiant Attack Surface Management product differs from the Mandiant Attack Surface Management integration within Security Command Center, see ASM and Security Command Center on the Mandiant documentation portal. This link requires Mandiant authentication.
Review Mandiant Attack Surface Management findings in the Google Cloud console
Use the following procedure to review findings in the Google Cloud console:
Go to the Security Command Center Findings page in the Google Cloud console.
Select your Google Cloud project or organization.
In the Quick filters section, in the Source display name subsection, select Mandiant Attack Surface Management.
The table is populated with Mandiant Attack Surface Management findings.
To view details of a specific finding, click the finding name under Category. The details panel for the finding opens and displays the Summary tab.
On the Summary tab, review the information about the finding, including information about what was detected, the resource that was affected, and more.
Policy Controller
Policy Controller enables the application and enforcement of programmable policies for your Kubernetes clusters. These policies act as guardrails and can help with best practices, security, and compliance management of your clusters and fleet.
If you install Policy Controller,
and enable either the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark v1.5.1 or the PCI-DSS v3.2.1
Policy Controller bundles, or both, Policy Controller automatically writes
cluster violations to Security Command Center as Misconfiguration
class
findings. The finding description and next steps in the Security Command Center
findings are the same as the constraint description and remediation steps
of the corresponding Policy Controller bundle.
The Policy Controller findings come from the following Policy Controller bundles:
- CIS Kubernetes Benchmark v.1.5.1,
a set of recommendations for configuring Kubernetes to support a strong security
posture. You can also view information about this bundle in the
GitHub repository for
cis-k8s-v1.5.1
. - PCI-DSS v3.2.1,
a bundle which evaluates the compliance of your cluster resources against
some aspects of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) v3.2.1.
You can also view information about this bundle in the
GitHub repository for
pci-dss-v3
.
To find and remediate Policy Controller findings, see Remediating Policy Controller findings.
Risk Engine
The Security Command Center Risk Engine assesses the risk exposure of your cloud deployments, assigns attack exposure scores to vulnerability findings and your high-value resources, and diagrams paths that a potential attacker could take to reach your high-value resources.
In the Enterprise tier of Security Command Center, the Risk Engine detects groups of security issues that, when they occur together in a particular pattern, create a path to one or more of your high-value resources that a determined attacker could potentially use to reach and compromise those resources.
When Risk Engine detects
one of these combinations, it issues a TOXIC_COMBINATION
class finding.
In the finding, Risk Engine is listed as the source of
the finding.
For more information, see Overview of toxic combinations.
Security Health Analytics
Security Health Analytics is a built-in detection service of Security Command Center that provides managed scans of your cloud resources to detect common misconfigurations.
When a misconfiguration is detected, Security Health Analytics issues a finding. Most Security Health Analytics findings are mapped to security standard controls so that you can assess compliance.
Security Health Analytics scans your resources on Google Cloud. If you are using the Enterprise tier and establish connections to other cloud platforms, Security Health Analytics can also scan your resources on those cloud platforms.
Depending on the Security Command Center service tier you are using, the available detectors differ:
- In the Standard tier, Security Health Analytics includes only a basic group of medium-severity and high-severity vulnerability detectors.
- The Premium tier includes all vulnerability detectors for Google Cloud.
- The Enterprise tier includes additional detectors for other cloud platforms.
Security Health Analytics is automatically enabled when you activate Security Command Center.
For more information, see:
- Security Health Analytics overview
- How to use Security Health Analytics
- Remediating Security Health Analytics findings
- Reference of Security Health Analytics findings
Security posture service
The security posture service is a built-in service for the Security Command Center Premium tier that lets you define, assess, and monitor the overall status of your security in Google Cloud. It provides information about how your environment aligns with the policies that you define in your security posture.
The security posture service isn't related to the GKE security posture dashboard, which only shows findings in GKE clusters.
Sensitive Data Protection
Sensitive Data Protection is a fully managed Google Cloud service that helps you discover, classify, and protect your sensitive data. You can use Sensitive Data Protection to determine whether you're storing sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII), like the following:
- Person names
- Credit card numbers
- National or state ID numbers
- Health insurance ID numbers
- Secrets
In Sensitive Data Protection, each type of sensitive data that you search for is called an infoType.
If you configure your Sensitive Data Protection operation to send results to Security Command Center, you can see the findings directly in the Security Command Center section of the Google Cloud console, in addition to the Sensitive Data Protection section.
Vulnerability findings from the Sensitive Data Protection discovery service
The Sensitive Data Protection discovery service helps you determine whether you are storing highly sensitive data that is not protected.
Category | Summary |
---|---|
Public sensitive data Category name in the API: PUBLIC_SENSITIVE_DATA
|
Finding description: The specified resource has high-sensitivity data that can be accessed by anyone on the internet. Supported assets:
Remediation: For Google Cloud data, remove For Amazon S3 data, configure block public access settings or update the object's ACL to deny public read access. Compliance standards: Not mapped |
Secrets in environment variables Category name in the API: SECRETS_IN_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES
|
Finding description: There are
secrets—such
as passwords, authentication tokens, and Google Cloud credentials—in Cloud Run functions
environment variables.
To enable this detector, see Report secrets in environment variables to Security Command Center in the Sensitive Data Protection documentation. Supported assets: Remediation: Remove the secret from the environment variable and store it in Secret Manager instead. Compliance standards:
|
Secrets in storage Category name in the API: SECRETS_IN_STORAGE
|
Finding description: There are
secrets—such
as passwords, authentication tokens, and cloud credentials—in the specified resource.
Supported assets:
Remediation:
Compliance standards: Not mapped |
Observation findings from Sensitive Data Protection
This section describes the observation findings that Sensitive Data Protection generates in Security Command Center.
Observation findings from the discovery service
The Sensitive Data Protection discovery service helps you determine whether your data contains specific infoTypes and where they reside in your organization, folders, and projects. It generates the following observation finding categories in Security Command Center:
Data sensitivity
- An indication of the sensitivity level of the data in a particular data asset. Data is sensitive if it contains PII or other elements that might require additional control or management. The severity of the finding is the sensitivity level that Sensitive Data Protection calculated when generating the data profile.
Data risk
- The risk associated with the data in its current state. When calculating data risk, Sensitive Data Protection considers the sensitivity level of the data in the data asset and the presence of access controls to protect that data. The severity of the finding is the data risk level that Sensitive Data Protection calculated when generating the data profile.
From the time Sensitive Data Protection generates the data profiles, it can take up to six hours for the associated findings to appear in Security Command Center.
For information about how to send data profile results to Security Command Center, see the following:
- For Security Command Center Enterprise: Enable sensitive data discovery.
- For Security Command Center Premium or Standard: Publish data profiles to Security Command Center.
Observation findings from the Sensitive Data Protection inspection service
A Sensitive Data Protection inspection job identifies each instance of data
of a specific infoType in a storage system like a Cloud Storage bucket or a
BigQuery table. For example, you can run an inspection job that
searches for all strings that match the CREDIT_CARD_NUMBER
infoType detector
in a Cloud Storage bucket.
For each infoType detector that has one or more matches, Sensitive Data Protection
generates a corresponding Security Command Center finding. The finding category is
the name of the infoType detector that had a match—for example, Credit
card number
. The finding includes the number of matching strings that were
detected in text or images in the resource.
For security reasons, the actual strings that were detected aren't included in
the finding. For example, a Credit card number
finding shows how many
credit card numbers were found, but doesn't show the actual credit card numbers.
Because there are more than 150 built-in infoType detectors in Sensitive Data Protection, all possible Security Command Center finding categories aren't listed here. For a full list of infoType detectors, see InfoType detector reference.
For information on how to send the results of an inspection job to Security Command Center, see Send Sensitive Data Protection inspection job results to Security Command Center.
Review Sensitive Data Protection findings in the Google Cloud console
Use the following procedure to review findings in the Google Cloud console:
Go to the Security Command Center Findings page in the Google Cloud console.
Select your Google Cloud project or organization.
In the Quick filters section, in the Source display name subsection, select Sensitive Data Protection.
The table is populated with Sensitive Data Protection findings.
To view details of a specific finding, click the finding name under Category. The details panel for the finding opens and displays the Summary tab.
On the Summary tab, review the information about the finding, including information about what was detected, the resource that was affected, and more.
VM Manager
VM Manager is a suite of tools that can be used to manage operating systems for large virtual machine (VM) fleets running Windows and Linux on Compute Engine.
To use VM Manager with project-level activations of Security Command Center Premium, activate Security Command Center Standard in the parent organization.
If you enable VM Manager with
the Security Command Center Premium tier, VM Manager
automatically writes high
and critical
findings from its vulnerability reports, which
are in preview, to Security Command Center. The reports identify vulnerabilities in
operating systems (OS) that are installed on VMs, including
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs).
Vulnerability reports are not available for Security Command Center Standard.
Findings simplify the process of using VM Manager's Patch Compliance feature, which is in preview. The feature lets you conduct patch management at the organization level across all of your projects. VM Manager supports patch management at the single project level.
To remediate VM Manager findings, see Remediating VM Manager findings.
To stop vulnerability reports from being written to Security Command Center, see Mute VM Manager findings.
Vulnerabilities of this type all relate to installed operating system packages in supported Compute Engine VMs.
Detector | Summary | Asset scan settings | Compliance standards |
---|---|---|---|
OS vulnerability
Category name in the API: |
Finding description: VM Manager detected a vulnerability in the installed operating system (OS) package for a Compute Engine VM. Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets |
VM Manager's vulnerability reports detail vulnerabilities in installed operating system packages for Compute Engine VMs, including Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs). For a complete list of supported operating systems, see Operating system details.Findings appear in Security Command Center shortly after vulnerabilities are detected. Vulnerability reports in VM Manager are generated as follows:
|
Vulnerability Assessment for AWS
The Vulnerability Assessment for Amazon Web Services (AWS) service detects software vulnerabilities in your workloads that are running on EC2 virtual machines (VMs) on the AWS cloud platform.
For each detected vulnerability, Vulnerability Assessment for AWS generates a
Vulnerability
class finding in the Software vulnerability
finding
category in Security Command Center.
The Vulnerability Assessment for AWS service scans snapshots of the running EC2 machine instances, so production workloads are unaffected. This scan method is called agentless disk scanning, because no agents are installed the scan targets.
For more information, see the following:
Web Security Scanner
Web Security Scanner provides managed and custom web vulnerability scanning for public App Engine, GKE, and Compute Engine serviced web applications.
Managed scans
Web Security Scanner managed scans are configured and managed by Security Command Center. Managed scans automatically run once each week to detect and scan public web endpoints. These scans don't use authentication and they send GET-only requests so they don't submit any forms on live websites.
Managed scans run separately from custom scans.
If Security Command Center is activated at the organization level, you can use managed scans to centrally manage basic web application vulnerability detection for projects in your organization, without having to involve individual project teams. When findings are discovered, you can work with those teams to set up more comprehensive custom scans.
When you enable Web Security Scanner as a service, managed scan findings are automatically available in the Security Command Center Vulnerabilities page and related reports. For information about how to enable Web Security Scanner managed scans, see Configure Security Command Center services.
Managed scans support only applications that use the default port, which is 80 for HTTP connections and 443 for HTTPS connections. If your application uses a non-default port, do a custom scan instead.
Custom scans
Web Security Scanner custom scans provide granular information about application vulnerability findings, like outdated libraries, cross-site scripting, or use of mixed content.
You define custom scans at the project level.
Custom scan findings are available in Security Command Center after you complete the guide to set up Web Security Scanner custom scans.
Detectors and compliance
Web Security Scanner supports categories in the OWASP Top Ten, a document that ranks and provides remediation guidance for the top 10 most critical web application security risks, as determined by the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). For guidance on mitigating OWASP risks, see OWASP Top 10 mitigation options on Google Cloud.
The compliance mapping is included for reference and is not provided or reviewed by the OWASP Foundation.
This functionality is only intended for you to monitor for compliance controls violations. The mappings are not provided for use as the basis of, or as a substitute for, the audit, certification, or report of compliance of your products or services with any regulatory or industry benchmarks or standards.
Web Security Scanner custom and managed scans identify the following finding types. In the Standard tier, Web Security Scanner supports custom scans of deployed applications with public URLs and IPs that aren't behind a firewall.
Category | Finding description | OWASP 2017 Top 10 | OWASP 2021 Top 10 |
---|---|---|---|
Accessible Git repository
Category name in the API: |
A Git repository is exposed publicly. To resolve this finding, remove
unintentional public access to the GIT repository.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A5 | A01 |
Accessible SVN repository
Category name in the API: |
An SVN repository is exposed publicly. To resolve this finding, remove
public unintentional access to the SVN repository.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A5 | A01 |
Cacheable password input
Category name in the API: |
Passwords entered on the web application can be cached in a regular browser cache instead of
a secure password storage.
Pricing tier: Premium |
A3 | A04 |
Clear text password
Category name in the API: |
Passwords are being transmitted in clear text and can be intercepted. To
resolve this finding, encrypt the password transmitted over the
network.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A3 | A02 |
Insecure allow origin ends with validation
Category name in the API: |
A cross-site HTTP or HTTPS endpoint validates only a suffix of the Origin request header
before reflecting it inside the Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header. To resolve this
finding, validate that the expected root domain is part of the Origin header value before
reflecting it in the Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header. For subdomain wildcards,
prepend the dot to the root domain—for example, .endsWith(".google.com") .
Pricing tier: Premium |
A5 | A01 |
Insecure allow origin starts with validation
Category name in the API: |
A cross-site HTTP or HTTPS endpoint validates only a prefix of the Origin request header
before reflecting it inside the Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header. To resolve this
finding, validate that the expected domain fully matches the Origin header value before
reflecting it in the Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header—for example,
.equals(".google.com") .
Pricing tier: Premium |
A5 | A01 |
Invalid content type
Category name in the API: |
A resource was loaded that doesn't match the response's Content-Type HTTP
header. To resolve this finding, set X-Content-Type-Options HTTP header
with the correct value.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A6 | A05 |
Invalid header
Category name in the API: |
A security header has a syntax error and is ignored by browsers. To resolve
this finding, set HTTP security headers correctly.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A6 | A05 |
Mismatching security header values
Category name in the API: |
A security header has duplicated, mismatching values, which result in
undefined behavior. To resolve this finding, set HTTP security headers
correctly.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A6 | A05 |
Misspelled security header name
Category name in the API: |
A security header is misspelled and is ignored. To resolve this finding,
set HTTP security headers correctly.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A6 | A05 |
Mixed content
Category name in the API: |
Resources are being served over HTTP on an HTTPS page. To resolve this
finding, make sure that all resources are served over HTTPS.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A6 | A05 |
Outdated library
Category name in the API: |
A library was detected that has known vulnerabilities. To resolve this
finding, upgrade libraries to a newer version.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A9 | A06 |
Server side request forgery
Category name in the API: |
A server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability was detected. To resolve this finding, use an
allowlist to limit the domains and IP addresses that the web application can make requests to.
Pricing tier: Standard |
Not applicable | A10 |
Session ID leak
Category name in the API: |
When making a cross-domain request, the web application includes the user's session identifier
in its Referer request header. This vulnerability gives the receiving domain access
to the session identifier, which can be used to impersonate or uniquely identify the user.
Pricing tier: Premium |
A2 | A07 |
SQL injection
Category name in the API: |
A potential SQL injection vulnerability was detected. To resolve this finding, use
parameterized queries to prevent user inputs from influencing the structure of the SQL query.
Pricing tier: Premium |
A1 | A03 |
Struts insecure deserialization
Category name in the API: |
The use of a vulnerable version of Apache
Struts was detected. To resolve this finding, upgrade Apache Struts to the latest version.
Pricing tier: Premium |
A8 | A08 |
XSS
Category name in the API: |
A field in this web application is vulnerable to a cross-site scripting
(XSS) attack. To resolve this finding, validate and escape untrusted
user-supplied data.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A7 | A03 |
XSS angular callback
Category name in the API: |
A user-provided string isn't escaped and AngularJS can interpolate it. To
resolve this finding, validate and escape untrusted user-supplied data
handled by Angular framework.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A7 | A03 |
XSS error
Category name in the API: |
A field in this web application is vulnerable to a cross-site scripting
attack. To resolve this finding, validate and escape untrusted
user-supplied data.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A7 | A03 |
XXE reflected file leakage
Category name in the API: |
An XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability was detected. This vulnerability can cause the web application to
leak a file on the host. To resolve this finding, configure your XML parsers to disallow
external entities.
Pricing tier: Premium |
A4 | A05 |
Prototype pollution
Category name in the API: |
The application is vulnerable to prototype pollution. This vulnerability arises when properties
of the Object.prototype object can be assigned attacker-controllable values. Values planted on these prototypes
are universally assumed to translate into cross-site scripting, or similar client-side vulnerabilities, as well as logic bugs.
Pricing tier: Standard |
A1 | A03 |
Threat detection services
Threat detection services include built-in and integrated services that detect events that might indicate potentially harmful events, such as compromised resources or cyberattacks.
Anomaly Detection
Anomaly Detection is a built-in service that uses behavior signals from outside your system. It displays granular information about security anomalies detected for your projects and virtual machine (VM) instances, such as potential leaked credentials. Anomaly Detection is automatically enabled when you activate Security Command Center Standard or Premium tier, and findings are available in the Google Cloud console.
Anomaly Detection findings include the following:
Anomaly name | Finding category | Description |
---|---|---|
Account has leaked credentials |
account_has_leaked_credentials |
Credentials for a Google Cloud service account are accidentally leaked online or are compromised. Severity: Critical |
Account has leaked credentials
GitHub notified Security Command Center that the credentials that were used for a commit appear to be the credentials for a Google Cloud Identity and Access Management service account.
The notification includes the service account name and the private key identifier. Google Cloud also sends your designated contact for security and privacy issues a notification by email.
To remediate this issue, take one or more of the following actions:
- Identify the legitimate user of the key.
- Rotate the key.
- Remove the key.
- Investigate any actions that were taken by the key after the key was leaked to ensure that none of the actions were malicious.
JSON: leaked account credentials finding
{ "findings": { "access": {}, "assetDisplayName": "PROJECT_NAME", "assetId": "organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/assets/ASSET_ID", "canonicalName": "projects/PROJECT_ID/sources/SOURCE_INSTANCE_ID/findings/FINDING_ID", "category": "account_has_leaked_credentials", "contacts": { "security": { "contacts": [ { "email": "EMAIL_ADDRESS" } ] } }, "createTime": "2022-08-05T20:59:41.022Z", "database": {}, "eventTime": "2022-08-05T20:59:40Z", "exfiltration": {}, "findingClass": "THREAT", "findingProviderId": "organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/firstPartyFindingProviders/cat", "indicator": {}, "kubernetes": {}, "mitreAttack": {}, "mute": "UNDEFINED", "name": "organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/sources/SOURCE_INSTANCE_ID/findings/FINDING_ID", "parent": "organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID/sources/SOURCE_INSTANCE_ID", "parentDisplayName": "Cloud Anomaly Detection", "resourceName": "//cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/projects/PROJECT_ID", "severity": "CRITICAL", "sourceDisplayName": "Cloud Anomaly Detection", "state": "ACTIVE", "vulnerability": {}, "workflowState": "NEW" }, "resource": { "name": "//cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/projects/PROJECT_ID", "display_name": "PROJECT_NAME", "project_name": "//cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/projects/PROJECT_ID", "project_display_name": "PROJECT_NAME", "parent_name": "//cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID", "parent_display_name": "ORGANIZATION_NAME", "type": "google.cloud.resourcemanager.Project", "folders": [] }, "sourceProperties": { "project_identifier": "PROJECT_ID", "compromised_account": "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com", "finding_type": "Potential compromise of a resource in your organization.", "summary_message": "We have detected leaked Service Account authentication credentials that could be potentially compromised.", "action_taken": "Notification sent", "private_key_identifier": "SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY_ID", "url": "https://github.com/KEY_FILE_PATH/KEY_FILE_NAME.json" } }
Container Threat Detection
Container Threat Detection can detect the most common container runtime attacks and alert you in Security Command Center and optionally in Cloud Logging. Container Threat Detection includes several detection capabilities, an analysis tool, and an API.
Container Threat Detection detection instrumentation collects low-level behavior in the guest kernel and performs natural language processing on code to detect the following events:
Added Binary Executed
Added Library Loaded
Execution: Added Malicious Binary Executed
Execution: Added Malicious Library Loaded
Execution: Built in Malicious Binary Executed
Execution: Malicious Python executed
Execution: Modified Malicious Binary Executed
Execution: Modified Malicious Library Loaded
Malicious Script Executed
Malicious URL Observed
Reverse Shell
Unexpected Child Shell
Learn more about Container Threat Detection.
Event Threat Detection
Event Threat Detection uses log data from inside your systems. It watches Cloud Logging stream for projects, and consumes logs as they become available. When a threat is detected, Event Threat Detection writes a finding to Security Command Center and to a Cloud Logging project. Event Threat Detection is automatically enabled when you activate the Security Command Center Premium tier and findings are available in the Google Cloud console.
The following table lists examples of Event Threat Detection findings.
Data destruction |
Event Threat Detection detects data destruction by examining audit logs from the Backup and DR Service Management Server for the following scenarios:
|
Data exfiltration |
Event Threat Detection detects data exfiltration from BigQuery and Cloud SQL by examining audit logs for the following scenarios:
|
Cloud SQL suspicious activity |
Event Threat Detection examines audit logs to detect the following events that might indicate a compromise of a valid user account on Cloud SQL instances:
|
AlloyDB for PostgreSQL suspicious activity |
Event Threat Detection examines audit logs to detect the following events that might indicate a compromise of a valid user account on AlloyDB for PostgreSQL instances:
|
Brute force SSH | Event Threat Detection detects brute force of password authentication SSH by examining syslog logs for repeated failures followed by a success. |
Cryptomining | Event Threat Detection detects coin mining malware by examining VPC flow logs and Cloud DNS logs for connections to known bad domains or IP addresses of mining pools. |
IAM abuse |
Anomalous IAM grants: Event Threat Detection detects the addition of IAM grants that might be considered anomalous, like:
|
Inhibit System Recovery |
Event Threat Detection detects anomalous changes to Backup and DR that may impact backup posture, including major policy changes and removal of critical Backup and DR components. |
Log4j | Event Threat Detection detects possible attempts at Log4j exploitation and active Log4j vulnerabilities. |
Malware | Event Threat Detection detects malware by examining VPC flow logs and Cloud DNS logs for connections to known command and control domains and IPs. |
Outgoing DoS | Event Threat Detection examines VPC flow logs to detect outgoing denial of service traffic. |
Anomalous access | Event Threat Detection detects anomalous access by examining Cloud Audit Logs for Google Cloud service modifications that originated from anonymous proxy IP addresses, like Tor IP addresses. |
Anomalous IAM behavior |
Event Threat Detection detects anomalous IAM behavior by examining
Cloud Audit Logs for the following scenarios:
|
Service account self-investigation | Event Threat Detection detects when a service account credential is used to investigate the roles and permissions associated with that same service account. |
Compute Engine Admin Added SSH Key | Event Threat Detection detects a modification to the Compute Engine instance metadata ssh key value on an established instance (older than 1 week). |
Compute Engine Admin Added Startup Script | Event Threat Detection detects a modification to the Compute Engine instance metadata startup script value on an established instance (older than 1 week). |
Suspicious account activity | Event Threat Detection detects potential compromise of Google Workspace accounts by examining audit logs for anomalous account activities, including leaked passwords and attempted suspicious logins. |
Government-backed attack | Event Threat Detection examines Google Workspace audit logs to detect when government-backed attackers might have tried to compromise a user's account or computer. |
Single sign-on (SSO) changes | Event Threat Detection examines Google Workspace audit logs to detect when SSO is disabled or settings are changed for Google Workspace admin accounts. |
2-step verification | Event Threat Detection examines Google Workspace audit logs to detect when 2-step verification is disabled on user and admin accounts. |
Anomalous API behavior | Event Threat Detection detects anomalous API behavior by examining Cloud Audit Logs for requests to Google Cloud services that a principal has not seen before. |
Defense Evasion |
Event Threat Detection detects Defense Evasion by examining Cloud Audit Logs for the following scenarios:
|
Discovery |
Event Threat Detection detects discovery operations by examining audit logs for the following scenarios:
|
Initial Access | Event Threat Detection detects initial access operations by
examining audit logs for the following scenarios:
|
Privilege escalation |
Event Threat Detection detects privilege escalation in GKE by examining audit logs for the following scenarios:
|
Cloud IDS detections | Cloud IDS detects layer 7 attacks by analyzing mirrored packets and, when it detects a suspicious event, triggers an Event Threat Detection finding. To learn more about Cloud IDS detections, see Cloud IDS Logging information. Preview |
Lateral movement | Event Threat Detection detects potential modified-boot-disk attacks by examining Cloud Audit Logs for frequent boot disk detachments and re-attachments across Compute Engine instances. |
Learn more about Event Threat Detection.
Forseti Security
Forseti Security gives you tools to understand all the resources you have in Google Cloud. The core Forseti modules work together to provide complete information so you can secure resources and minimize security risks.
To display Forseti violation notifications in Security Command Center, follow the Forseti Security Command Center notification guide.
For more information:
- Learn about Forseti.
- Get help with Forseti.
Google Cloud Armor
Google Cloud Armor helps protect your application by providing Layer 7 filtering. Google Cloud Armor scrubs incoming requests for common web attacks or other Layer 7 attributes to potentially block traffic before it reaches your load-balanced backend services or backend buckets.
Google Cloud Armor exports two findings to Security Command Center:
Virtual Machine Threat Detection
Virtual Machine Threat Detection, a built-in service of Security Command Center Premium, provides threat detection through hypervisor-level instrumentation and persistent disk analysis. VM Threat Detection detects potentially malicious applications, such as cryptocurrency mining software, kernel-mode rootkits, and malware running in compromised cloud environments.
VM Threat Detection is part of Security Command Center Premium's threat detection suite and is designed to complement the existing capabilities of Event Threat Detection and Container Threat Detection.
For more information about VM Threat Detection, see VM Threat Detection overview.
VM Threat Detection threat findings
VM Threat Detection can generate the following threat findings.
Cryptocurrency mining threat findings
VM Threat Detection detects the following finding categories through hash matching or YARA rules.
Category | Module | Description |
---|---|---|
Execution: Cryptocurrency Mining Hash Match
|
CRYPTOMINING_HASH
|
Matches memory hashes of running programs against known memory hashes of cryptocurrency mining software. |
Execution: Cryptocurrency Mining YARA Rule
|
CRYPTOMINING_YARA
|
Matches memory patterns, such as proof-of-work constants, known to be used by cryptocurrency mining software. |
Execution: Cryptocurrency Mining Combined Detection
|
|
Identifies a threat that was detected by both the
CRYPTOMINING_HASH and CRYPTOMINING_YARA modules.
For more information, see
Combined detections.
|
Kernel-mode rootkit threat findings
VM Threat Detection analyzes kernel integrity at run time to detect common evasion techniques that are used by malware.
The KERNEL_MEMORY_TAMPERING
module detects threats by doing a hash comparison on the
kernel code and kernel read-only data memory of a virtual machine.
The KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
module detects threats by checking
the integrity of important kernel data structures.
Category | Module | Description |
---|---|---|
Kernel memory tampering | ||
Defense Evasion: Unexpected kernel code modification Preview
|
KERNEL_MEMORY_TAMPERING
|
Unexpected modifications of kernel code memory are present. |
Defense Evasion: Unexpected kernel read-only data modification Preview
|
KERNEL_MEMORY_TAMPERING
|
Unexpected modifications of kernel read-only data memory are present. |
Kernel integrity tampering | ||
Defense Evasion: Unexpected ftrace handler Preview
|
KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
|
ftrace points are present with callbacks pointing to regions that are not in
the expected kernel or module code range.
|
Defense Evasion: Unexpected interrupt handler Preview
|
KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
|
Interrupt handlers that aren't in the expected kernel or module code regions are present. |
Defense Evasion: Unexpected kernel modules Preview
|
KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
|
Kernel code pages that are not in the expected kernel or module code regions are present. |
Defense Evasion: Unexpected kprobe handler Preview
|
KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
|
kprobe points are present with callbacks pointing to regions that are not in
the expected kernel or module code range.
|
Defense Evasion: Unexpected processes in runqueue Preview
|
KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
|
Unexpected processes in the scheduler run queue are present. Such processes are in the run queue, but not in the process task list. |
Defense Evasion: Unexpected system call handler Preview
|
KERNEL_INTEGRITY_TAMPERING
|
System call handlers that aren't in the expected kernel or module code regions are present. |
Rootkit | ||
Defense Evasion: Rootkit Preview
|
|
A combination of signals matching a known kernel-mode rootkit is present. To receive findings of this category, make sure both modules are enabled. |
VM Threat Detection observation finding
VM Threat Detection can generate the following observation finding.
Category name | API name | Summary | Severity |
---|---|---|---|
VMTD disabled
|
VMTD_DISABLED |
VM Threat Detection is disabled. Until you enable it, this service can't scan your Compute Engine projects and VM instances for unwanted applications.
This finding is set to |
High |
Errors
Error detectors can help you detect errors in your configuration that prevent
security sources from generating findings. Error findings are generated by
the Security Command Center
security source and
have the finding class SCC errors
.
Inadvertent actions
The following finding categories represent errors possibly caused by unintentional actions.
Category name | API name | Summary | Severity |
---|---|---|---|
API disabled |
API_DISABLED |
Finding description: A required API is disabled for the project. The disabled service can't send findings to Security Command Center. Pricing tier: Premium or Standard
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 60 hours |
Critical |
Attack path simulation: no resource value configs match any resources |
APS_NO_RESOURCE_VALUE_CONFIGS_MATCH_ANY_RESOURCES |
Finding description: Resource value configurations are defined for attack path simulations, but they do not match any resource instances in your environment. The simulations are using the default high-value resource set instead. This error can have any of the following causes:
Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Before every attack path simulation. |
Critical |
Attack path simulation: resource value assignment limit exceeded |
APS_RESOURCE_VALUE_ASSIGNMENT_LIMIT_EXCEEDED |
Finding description: In the last attack path simulation, the number of high-value resource instances, as identified by the resource value configurations, exceeded the limit of 1,000 resource instances in a high-value resource set. As a result, Security Command Center excluded the excess number of instances from the high-value resource set. The total number of matching instances and the total number of instances excluded
from the set are identified in the The attack exposure scores on any findings that affect excluded resource instances do not reflect the high-value designation of the resource instances. Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Before every attack path simulation. |
High |
Container Threat Detection
Image Pull Failure |
KTD_IMAGE_PULL_FAILURE |
Finding description:
Container Threat Detection can't be enabled on the cluster because a required container
image can't be pulled (downloaded) from The attempt to deploy the Container Threat Detection DaemonSet resulted in the following error:
Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 30 minutes |
Critical |
Container Threat Detection
Blocked By Admission Controller |
KTD_BLOCKED_BY_ADMISSION_CONTROLLER |
Finding description: Container Threat Detection can't be enabled on a Kubernetes cluster. A third-party admission controller is preventing the deployment of a Kubernetes DaemonSet object that Container Threat Detection requires. When viewed in the Google Cloud console, the finding details include the error message that was returned by Google Kubernetes Engine when Container Threat Detection attempted to deploy a Container Threat Detection DaemonSet Object. Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 30 minutes |
High |
Container Threat
Detection service account missing permissions |
KTD_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_MISSING_PERMISSIONS |
Finding description: A service account is missing permissions that Container Threat Detection requires. Container Threat Detection could stop functioning properly because the detection instrumentation cannot be enabled, upgraded, or disabled. Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 30 minutes |
Critical |
GKE service account missing
permissions |
GKE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_MISSING_PERMISSIONS |
Finding description: Container Threat Detection can't generate findings for a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster, because the GKE default service account on the cluster is missing permissions. This prevents Container Threat Detection from being successfully enabled on the cluster. Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Every week |
High |
Misconfigured Cloud Logging Export |
MISCONFIGURED_CLOUD_LOGGING_EXPORT |
Finding description: The project configured for continuous export to Cloud Logging is unavailable. Security Command Center can't send findings to Logging. Pricing tier: Premium
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 30 minutes |
High |
VPC Service Controls Restriction |
VPC_SC_RESTRICTION |
Finding description: Security Health Analytics can't produce certain findings for a project. The project is protected by a service perimeter, and the Security Command Center service account doesn't have access to the perimeter. Pricing tier: Premium or Standard
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 6 hours |
High |
Security Command
Center service account missing permissions |
SCC_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_MISSING_PERMISSIONS |
Finding description: The Security Command Center service account is missing permissions required to function properly. No findings are produced. Pricing tier: Premium or Standard
Supported assets Batch scans: Every 30 minutes |
Critical |
For more information, see Security Command Center errors.
What's next
- Learn about Security Command Center and example use cases in the Security Command Center overview.
- Learn how to add new security sources by configuring Security Command Center services.