Background: The Distinctive Panorama of the Black Hat NOC
Working the Black Hat Safety and Community Operations Heart (NOC) presents a novel set of challenges and expectations. In contrast to a typical company surroundings the place any hacking exercise is instantly deemed malicious, the Black Hat convention is a nexus for cybersecurity analysis, coaching, and moral hacking. Consequently, we anticipate and even count on a big quantity of exercise that, in different contexts, can be thought-about extremely suspicious or outright hostile. This consists of varied types of scanning, exploitation makes an attempt, and different adversarial simulations, usually carried out as a part of official trainings or unbiased analysis.
Including to this complexity is the Deliver Your Personal System (BYOD) nature of the convention community. Attendees join a big selection of non-public gadgets, making conventional endpoint telemetry (like EDR options) a big problem for complete monitoring. As such, our main focus was on sturdy network-based telemetry for detection and risk searching.
Overview
This writeup particulars a current investigation inside the Black Hat Safety and Community Operations Heart (SNOC), highlighting the vital function of built-in safety instruments and early detection in mitigating potential threats, notably when originating from inside a high-profile coaching surroundings.
On August 4, 2025, a Cisco XDR analytics alert flagged “Suspected Port Abuse: Exterior – Exterior Port Scanner.” The alert indicated an inside host from the “Defending Enterprises – 2025 Version” coaching room was actively concentrating on an exterior IP tackle, which resolved to a website belonging to the Def Con cybersecurity convention. This exercise aligned with the MITRE ATT&CK framework’s Reconnaissance tactic (TA0043), particularly the Energetic Scanning approach (T1595).
Investigation Workflow: A Multi-Instrument Strategy to Speedy Response
Part 1: Assault Triage With Cisco XDR
The Cisco XDR analytics incident offered the preliminary alert and connection flows, providing fast visibility into the suspicious community exercise. Detecting this on the reconnaissance section is essential, as early detection within the MITRE ATT&CK chain considerably reduces the danger of an adversary progressing to extra impactful phases.
We noticed a excessive confidence incident involving two IP addresses from an inside subnet connecting with a single exterior IP tackle. The related alert was categorized as a suspected port abuse by Cisco XDR.
Cisco XDR’s ‘Examine’ function then allowed us to additional drill down into and visualized the connection flows related to that exterior IP tackle. It additionally searched towards a number of risk intelligence sources for any repute related to the observables. The exterior host was not discovered to have a malicious repute.
Part 2: Goal Identification With Cisco Umbrella
We used Cisco Umbrella (DNS resolver) to substantiate that the goal IP resolves to a single area. The area seems to be owned by Def Con and hosted in the USA, by Comcast. The direct affiliation with the Def Con Cybersecurity Convention instantly raised issues about unauthorized reconnaissance towards one other main occasion’s infrastructure.
Cisco Umbrella sensible search lookup of the area confirmed that the area has a low threat and is assessed beneath the “Hacking/Conventions” class. It was confirmed by Cisco Umbrella to belong to the Def Con conference.
Part 3: Visitors Evaluation
Inspecting the NetFlow site visitors in XDR analytics offers us a right away perception that port scanning has doubtless occurred.
Pivoting into Cisco Firepower Administration Console (FMC), we ran a report of the related site visitors from the Cisco Firepower Administration Console.
The report graphed the highest 100 vacation spot ports related to the site visitors and painted a really clear image. It confirmed that the interior host was systematically scanning varied ports on the exterior goal. Notably, we excluded widespread net ports like 80 and 443, which helped us keep away from taking a look at probably reputable site visitors. Every port was scanned exactly 4 instances, indicating a methodical, automated exercise, solely according to a devoted port scan.
For additional validation and quantification, we then queried Palo Alto Networks firewall logs in Splunk Enterprise Safety (ES). The Splunk question confirmed 3,626 scanning occasions between 2025/08/04 17:47:07 and 2025/08/04 18:20:29.
Constant port counts additional validated automated scanning.
Part 4: Offender Identification
Using our workforce’s Slack Bot API, which is built-in with Palo Alto Cortex XSIAM, we had been in a position to shortly determine the supply machine. This included its MAC tackle and hostname, and we pinpointed it as working instantly from the Black Hat coaching room, particularly ‘Defending Enterprises – 2025 Version’:
Lastly, we had been in a position to seize the total PCAP of the site visitors as extra proof, utilizing our full packet seize software, Endace Imaginative and prescient. This investigation confirmed that the unauthorized scanning originated from a pupil in a coaching room. The offender was shortly recognized and instructed to stop the exercise. The incident was then closed, with continued monitoring of the coaching room and its individuals.
Potential Dangers Highlighted by the Incident
- Reputational Injury: Such incidents can injury the repute of Black Hat as a premier cybersecurity occasion, eroding belief amongst individuals, companions, and the broader safety group.
- Facilitating illegal Exercise: Extra critically, if left unchecked, these actions may result in Black Hat infrastructure being leveraged for illegal exercise towards exterior third events, probably leading to authorized repercussions and extreme operational disruptions. Swift detection and remediation are important to uphold belief and stop such outcomes.
Decision and Key Takeaways: Implementing Coverage and the Worth of Swift Motion
The investigation confirmed unauthorized scanning originating by a pupil. Following this, the offender was shortly recognized and made to stop the exercise. The incident was closed, with continued monitoring of the coaching room.
- The Criticality of Early Detection: This case exemplifies the worth of detecting adversarial exercise on the Reconnaissance section (TA0043) through methods like Energetic Scanning (T1595). By figuring out and addressing this conduct early, we prevented potential escalation to extra damaging techniques towards an exterior goal.
- Built-in Tooling: The seamless integration of Cisco XDR, Cisco Umbrella, Cisco FMC, Splunk ES, Slack API integration, Endace Imaginative and prescient and Palo Alto Cortex XSIAM enabled fast detection, detailed evaluation, and exact attribution.
- Vigilance in Coaching Environments: Even in managed, academic settings like Black Hat, steady monitoring and swift response are paramount. The dynamic nature of such environments necessitates sturdy safety controls to forestall misuse and keep community integrity.
- Coverage Enforcement: Clear communication and constant enforcement of community utilization insurance policies are important to handle expectations and stop unauthorized actions, whether or not intentional or experimental.
About Black Hat
Black Hat is the cybersecurity business’s most established and in-depth safety occasion sequence. Based in 1997, these annual, multi-day occasions present attendees with the newest in cybersecurity analysis, growth, and developments. Pushed by the wants of the group, Black Hat occasions showcase content material instantly from the group by Briefings displays, Trainings programs, Summits, and extra. Because the occasion sequence the place all profession ranges and educational disciplines convene to collaborate, community, and talk about the cybersecurity matters that matter most to them, attendees can discover Black Hat occasions in the USA, Canada, Europe, Center East and Africa, and Asia. For extra data, please go to the Black Hat web site.
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