Dropping events in Auditbeat

Elastic Stack Beats
1

I have Auditbeat shipping system processes directly to elastic cloud, I would like to drop the noisiest events such as Google Chrome + Renderer and 'System/Library/Frameworks' and their child processes.

I have added this in the processor section, yet i still receive the events in Elasticearch. Do I need to match it more specifically/is my drop_event too general for the condition to be met?

    processors:
     - drop_event:
         when:
           contains:
             process.exe: “/System/Library/Frameworks”

     - drop_event:
         when:
           contains:
             process.exe: “/Applications/Google Chrome.app/“
2

The quotes in your YAML are not valid. By default macOS will replace standard ascii 34 double-quotes with fancy UNICODE quotes. These misleading quotes might be on your auditbeat.yml or just replaced when pasting in here, so please check that the configuration file has the right kind of quotes. Here's a guide to disable smart quotes.

Also, make sure that you don't have two top-level processors sections in your configuration. As the later one will silently override the rest.

If all above is fine, then share your full configuration file and a JSON document in Elasticsearch that you think should've been dropped by the processor. It is looking fine, though.

3

Hi Adrian,

I followed the guide and disabled smart quotes. As for top level processors, do you mean I should have the second one indented from the first?

Auditbeat config & JSON file:

###################### Auditbeat Configuration  #########################

# This is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common
# options. The auditbeat.reference.yml file from the same directory contains all
# the supported options with more comments. You can use it as a reference.
#
# You can find the full configuration reference here:
# https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/auditbeat/index.html

#==========================  Modules configuration =============================
auditbeat.modules:

- module: file_integrity
  paths:
  - /bin
  - /usr/bin
  - /usr/local/bin
  - /sbin
  - /usr/sbin
  - /usr/local/sbin

- module: system
  datasets:
    - host    # General host information, e.g. uptime, IPs
    - package # Installed, updated, and removed packages
    - process # Started and stopped processes

  # How often datasets send state updates with the
  # current state of the system (e.g. all currently
  # running processes, all open sockets).
  state.period: 12h

#==================== Elasticsearch template setting ==========================
setup.template.settings:
  index.number_of_shards: 1
  #index.codec: best_compression
  #_source.enabled: false

#================================ General =====================================

# The name of the shipper that publishes the network data. It can be used to group
# all the transactions sent by a single shipper in the web interface.
#name:

# The tags of the shipper are included in their own field with each
# transaction published.
#tags: ["service-X", "web-tier"]

# Optional fields that you can specify to add additional information to the
# output.
#fields:
#  env: staging


#============================== Dashboards =====================================
# These settings control loading the sample dashboards to the Kibana index. Loading
# the dashboards is disabled by default and can be enabled either by setting the
# options here or by using the `setup` command.
#setup.dashboards.enabled: false

# The URL from where to download the dashboards archive. By default this URL
# has a value which is computed based on the Beat name and version. For released
# versions, this URL points to the dashboard archive on the artifacts.elastic.co
# website.
#setup.dashboards.url:

#============================== Kibana =====================================

# Starting with Beats version 6.0.0, the dashboards are loaded via the Kibana API.
# This requires a Kibana endpoint configuration.
setup.kibana:

  # Kibana Host
  # Scheme and port can be left out and will be set to the default (http and 5601)
  # In case you specify and additional path, the scheme is required: http://localhost:5601/path
  # IPv6 addresses should always be defined as: https://[2001:db8::1]:5601
  #host: "localhost:5601"

  # Kibana Space ID
  # ID of the Kibana Space into which the dashboards should be loaded. By default,
  # the Default Space will be used.
  #space.id:

#============================= Elastic Cloud ==================================

# These settings simplify using Auditbeat with the Elastic Cloud (https://cloud.elastic.co/).

# The cloud.id setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.hosts` and
# `setup.kibana.host` options.
# You can find the `cloud.id` in the Elastic Cloud web UI.

cloud.id: ""

# The cloud.auth setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.username` and
# `output.elasticsearch.password` settings. The format is `<user>:<pass>`.
cloud.auth: ""
#================================ Outputs =====================================

# Configure what output to use when sending the data collected by the beat.

#-------------------------- Elasticsearch output ------------------------------
output.elasticsearch:
  # Array of hosts to connect to.
  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]

  # Protocol - either `http` (default) or `https`.
  #protocol: "https"

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  #api_key: "id:api_key"
  #username: "elastic"
  #password: "changeme"

#----------------------------- Logstash output --------------------------------
#output.logstash:
  # The Logstash hosts
  #hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

  # Optional SSL. By default is off.
  # List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications
  #ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]

  # Certificate for SSL client authentication
  #ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"

  # Client Certificate Key
  #ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

#================================ Processors =====================================

# Configure processors to enhance or manipulate events generated by the beat.


processors:
 - drop_event:
     when:
       contains:
         process.exe: "/System/Library/Frameworks"

 - drop_event:
     when:
       contains:
         process.exe: "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/"

#================================ Logging =====================================

# Sets log level. The default log level is info.
# Available log levels are: error, warning, info, debug
#logging.level: debug

# At debug level, you can selectively enable logging only for some components.
# To enable all selectors use ["*"]. Examples of other selectors are "beat",
# "publish", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

#============================== X-Pack Monitoring ===============================
# auditbeat can export internal metrics to a central Elasticsearch monitoring
# cluster.  This requires xpack monitoring to be enabled in Elasticsearch.  The
# reporting is disabled by default.

# Set to true to enable the monitoring reporter.
#monitoring.enabled: false

# Sets the UUID of the Elasticsearch cluster under which monitoring data for this
# Auditbeat instance will appear in the Stack Monitoring UI. If output.elasticsearch
# is enabled, the UUID is derived from the Elasticsearch cluster referenced by output.elasticsearch.
#monitoring.cluster_uuid:

# Uncomment to send the metrics to Elasticsearch. Most settings from the
# Elasticsearch output are accepted here as well.
# Note that the settings should point to your Elasticsearch *monitoring* cluster.
# Any setting that is not set is automatically inherited from the Elasticsearch
# output configuration, so if you have the Elasticsearch output configured such
# that it is pointing to your Elasticsearch monitoring cluster, you can simply
# uncomment the following line.
#monitoring.elasticsearch:

#================================= Migration ==================================

# This allows to enable 6.7 migration aliases
#migration.6_to_7.enabled: true

JSON Document that should be dropped

{
  "_index": "auditbeat-8.0.0-2020.03.09-000001",
  "_type": "_doc",
  "_id": "WUL6F3EBCTTDH7xU3oVi",
  "_version": 1,
  "_score": null,
  "_source": {
    "@timestamp": "2020-03-26T17:54:07.983Z",
    "user": {
      "group": {
        "id": "20",
        "name": "staff"
      },
      "effective": {
        "id": "502",
        "group": {
          "id": "20"
        }
      },
      "saved": {
        "group": {
          "id": "20"
        },
        "id": "502"
      },
      "name": "aaron.w",
      "id": "502"
    },
    "service": {
      "type": "system"
    },
    "event": {
      "module": "system",
      "dataset": "process",
      "kind": "event",
      "action": "process_stopped"
    },
    "process": {
      "name": "Google Chrome Helper (Plugin)",
      "pid": 36896,
      "entity_id": "XJ2CvykSsUx0BGjk",
      "working_directory": "/",
      "executable": "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Frameworks/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Versions/80.0.3987.149/Helpers/Google Chrome Helper (Plugin).app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper (Plugin)",
      "args": [
        "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Frameworks/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Versions/80.0.3987.149/Helpers/Google Chrome Helper (Plugin).app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper (Plugin)",
        "--type=utility",
        "--field-trial-handle=1718379636,17772027231364414737,5096744184235400478,131072",
        "--lang=en-US",
        "--no-sandbox",
        "--enable-audio-service-sandbox",
        "--disable-quic",
        "--message-loop-type-ui",
        "--metrics-client-id=d1b371ed-6bcb-4994-b4b8-55b536698638",
        "--shared-files"
      ],
      "hash": {
        "sha1": "e68f632459684b1341e0e1722c06eeaa566bfe70"
      },
      "start": "2020-03-26T17:53:54.361Z",
      "ppid": 842
    },
    "message": "Process Google Chrome Helper (Plugin) (PID: 36896) by user aaron.wasserman STOPPED",
    "host": {
      "name": "Aaron-Laptop.local"
    },
    "agent": {
      "type": "auditbeat",
      "ephemeral_id": "52a0dd47-8e72-4429-b90a-3b073b259d08",
      "hostname": "Aaron--Laptop.local",
      "id": "d22cdc75-d027-4f8c-b8bc-36bf24171a06",
      "version": "8.0.0"
    },
    "ecs": {
      "version": "1.4.0"
    }
  },
  "fields": {
    "@timestamp": [
      "2020-03-26T17:54:07.983Z"
    ],
    "process.start": [
      "2020-03-26T17:53:54.361Z"
    ]
  },
  "highlight": {
    "agent.hostname": [
      "@kibana-highlighted-field@Aaron--Laptop.local@/kibana-highlighted-field@"
    ]
  },
  "sort": [
    1585245247983
  ]
}
4

The processors definition is correct, but you're filtering on the wrong field. The name is process.executable not process.exe :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

Yep, that worked, I thought that process.exe = process.executable. Thanks for the help!

1 Like
6

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