One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions 6.7.2 - Administration Guide

The search and filter process

The screen content is first indexed, then processed with the search backend, and finally, the filter expressions are applied. This process is described in detail in the following sections.

Figure 250: The search and filter process

Prerequisites - Indexing phase

First, as a prerequisite of the search process, screen content is indexed. The indexing phase generates a database that the search and filter processes will run on.

The indexer parses the audit trail files, and builds an "inventory" of the privileged user's activity data based on what appeared on their screen.

1. In the case of a terminal session, screen content corresponds to the activity data that is captured in a terminal window. In the case of graphical protocols, screen content is whatever is visible in the graphical user interface of the applications the user is interacting with. In the latter case, the indexer's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine extracts text that appeared on the screen (for example, window titles).

   NOTE:

   If a piece of text is displayed for less than 1 second, it is not extracted.

2. The indexer returns the information extracted from the parsed audit trail files to One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS). In the case of a terminal session, the captured text is put in the backend database as one document per one second of screen content. Because of this, the content that you have searched for might only partially appear in the screenshot. In the case of graphical protocols, the captured text is put in the backend database as one document per screenshot.

3. The queries will be run on this database during the search process.

For details on indexing, see Indexing audit trails.

Search and filter process phases

The search and filter process consists of three major phases:

• Query phase

• Grouping phase

• Filter phase

Query phase

In the query phase, the backend ranks and then limits the number of results.

1. The result of one query is the top 3000 documents, ordered by the default ranking system of the backend.

   This means that if there are more than 3000 results, those of the lowest rank will not be passed to the next phase at all.

   The ranking system cannot be modified, so there is no way to "upvote" those results of lower ranks.

   If you want to ensure that all important results are passed to the grouping phase, use a smaller time range that you run the query on. If there are fewer than 3000 results, it is certain that the events you are interested in will be included in the grouping phase.

2. The grouping phase receives the results.

Grouping phase

The grouping phase groups the results that were passed on from the query phase.

1. First, the results with the same trail IDs are grouped together. A trail ID group contains all search hits that are in that trail.

2. The trail ID groups are then further grouped by seach expression and time range. This group is essentially the time range during which the expression is displayed on the screen (for example, if the text root is displayed from 00:00:12 to 00:01:45, this will be one group).

3. This grouped result is displayed in the search screen as one row.

Filter phase

The filter phase applies filter expressions to these grouped results.

Fine-tuning the backend search manually

You can fine-tune your search manually with the command line utility lucenectl. To do this, log on to the core shell. For details, see Accessing the One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) console.

• Specify more exact time ranges (use Unix timestamps).

  For example, to limit the time range to Thursday, June 30, 2016 11:39:51 AM - Thursday, November 3, 2016 2:44:46 PM, enter the following command:

  lucenectl search --from-to 1467286791 1478184286 --text remote --limit 3000 --aggregate-by-trail --normalize-rank

  NOTE:

  For converting timestamps to Unix timestamp, use https://www.epochconverter.com/.

• Increase the query limit of 3000 to a limit of your choice.

  For example, to increase the query limit of 3000 to 4500, enter the following command:

  lucenectl search --from-to 1467286791 1478184286 --text <your-screen-content-search-expression> --limit 4500 --aggregate-by-trail --normalize-rank

  lucenectl search --from-to 1467286791 1478184286 --text remote --limit 4500 --aggregate-by-trail --normalize-rank

  NOTE:

  If you do not receive more results with a larger query limit, it means that you have found all results with your search expression.

However, the downside of using lucenectl to fine-tune your search is that after the cli search, you have to manually extract the trails that you find interesting with the help of the metadb.

The following example shows the output of a lucenectl search:

{
 "hits": [
   {
     "hits_count": 1,
     "channel_id": 1,
     "trail_id": "58",
     "rank": 0.4068610216585047
   },
   {
     "hits_count": 7,
     "channel_id": 761,
     "trail_id": "12",
     "rank": 1.0
   },
   {
     "hits_count": 2,
     "channel_id": 1,
     "trail_id": "139",
     "rank": 0.5923645275802537
   }
 ]
}

• rank: the larger the number, the higher the rank

• hits_count: the number of times the screen content search expression is displayed in the audit trail

• trail_id: the ID of the trail

• channel_id: the ID of the channel

The most relevant audit trail will probably be the one with the highest rank.

If you have determined which audit trail you are interested in, enter the following command. The value of _connection_channel_id will be the value of the trail_id from the lucenectl output that you have determined as most relevant.

psql -U scb scb -c "select audit from channels where _connection_channel_id = 12;"

The output of this command will be:

/<audittrailpath>/audit-scb_rdp-1467274538-0.zat:2
/<audittrailpath>/audit-scb_rdp-1467274538-0.zat:1

From this output, the audit trail file name path is as follows: /<audittrailpath>/audit-scb_rdp-1467274538-0.zat

psql -U scb scb -c "select audit, _archive_path  from channels where _connection_channel_id = 12;"

                    audit                                | _archive_path
---------------------------------------------------------+---------------
/<audittrailpath>/audit-scb_rdp-1467274538-0.zat:2 | /<myarchive/path>/
/<audittrailpath>/audit-scb_rdp-1467274538-0.zat:1 | /<myarchive/path>/
                                                         | 

Viewing session details

View the session details of each session for in-depth information on each of the indexed session stored in the connection database. You can use it to gain contextual insight about the indexed session and its events.

You can view session details for data recorded by:

• SPS. For more information, see Viewing session details for data recorded by SPS.

• One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Passwords (SPP). For more information, see Viewing session details for data recorded by SPP.

Frequent Item Set (FIS) flow view visuals

Frequent Item Set (FIS) flow view visuals are also available on the Analytics tab. The FIS flow view is similar to the flow view analytics overview, except that the FIS flow view only displays data narrowed down to a single user's previous sessions in the analysis period (which is the previous 90 days by default). For more information, see Visualizing Frequent Item Sets on the FIS flow view.

Session tags

Session tags allow you to get basic information about the session and its contents at a glance.

Scripted session tag: One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) currently supports the scripted session tag. SPS uses One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Analytics to detect if sessions are generated using human interaction or automation. If sessions are generated using automation, SPS displays the scripted tag in the search interface as shown below:

• Scripted sessions are shown on the main search screen.

  Figure 251: Scripted sessions — cards view

  

• Scripted sessions are shown on the Overview tab.

  Figure 252: Scripted sessions — Overview tab

  

Viewing session details for data recorded by SPS

From the Search interface, you can view session details for data recorded by SPS. To view session details for data recorded by Safeguard for Privileged Passwords (SPP), see Viewing session details for data recorded by SPP.

The icon in the Search interface indicates that data was recorded by SPS. To search only for data recorded by SPS, enter origin:("RECORDING") in the Search query field.

To view session details, click the button in the last column of the relevant session.

Figure 253: Search — Accessing session details

Figure 254: SPS session details

The session details window provides details about the sessions on tabs.

Overview tab

The Overview tab is divided into the following main areas:

• The Events area displays session events in chronological order.

  View the date and time of the event, the event type and event details. To filter events, use the Events tab.

• The Score area shows the risk score that the Analytics Module assigned to the session. Ranges from 0 to 100, 100 is the highest risk score.

• The Quick look area contains user information, for example, gateway and server username, start and end time of the session, and so on.

  The gateway username corresponds to the Username field of the connection metadata database, so note the following:

  • If the user performed inband gateway authentication in the connection, the field contains the username from the gateway authentication (gateway username).

  • Otherwise, the field contains the username used on the remote server.

• The Interesting events area displays events selected as interesting, for example, a list of commands and window titles from the session that could be interesting from a security point of view.

  The list of interesting events is currently hard-coded and cannot be modified. For terminal sessions it includes commands such as chmod, ssh, shutdown, sudo, su, mount, adduser, addgroup. For graphical sessions, it contains window titles such as Management Console, Control Panel, Server Manager, PowerShell, Security Settings, Windows Security Center.

• The Network area displays session information, for example, verdict, protocol, connection policy, client and server address.

Details tab

In addition to the Quick look, Interesting events, and Network screen areas, the Details tab provides monitoring information, audit trail downloads information, and channels information, too.

Events tab

The Events tab displays the:

• Session events in chronological order.

  You can narrow the event list by entering the event name in the Filter events field.

• Date and time of the event.

• Event type (command, screen content, window title).

• Event details.

• Screenshots. If screenshots are available for the session, you can click each event to view the corresponding screenshot.

Alerts tab

The Alerts tab displays the:

• Content policy alerts triggered in the session, in chronological order.

  You can narrow the alert list by entering the alert name in the Filter alerts field.

• Date and time of the alert.

• Alert details.

• Screenshots. If screenshots are available for the session, you can click each alert to view the corresponding screenshot.

Screenshots are generated for search results and alerts when the session is opened, and for subsequent searches.

Screenshots are not available for:

• Ongoing sessions.

• Unindexed sessions.

• Trails of HTTP sessions.

• Encrypted trails (without the necessary certificate).

Contents tab

You can search in the contents of the audit trails as follows:

• From your browser: Use this method to find all the sessions containing your search query.

  Enter the screen.content: expression search query in the Search query field. For example: screen.content="exit". The search returns all the sessions where exit was on the screen.

• From the Safeguard Desktop Player application: Use this method to find the exact location of the search query within a specific audit trail.

  Download the relevant audit trail, open it in the Safeguard Desktop Player application, and use the Search feature. You can also search in the contents of the audit trails for trails of graphical sessions created and indexed with One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) 6.0.

For more information, see Searching in the contents of audit trails.

Analytics tab

If you use the One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Analytics, you can view detailed analyses provided by the configured algorithms. For more information, see Analyzing data using One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Analytics.

Viewing active connections

If a connection is not closed and is still active, the label is displayed in the session details window.

To close an active connection, click the label.

You can also view the live connection as follows:

1. Click the label.

2. Download the audit trail.

   Trail data is exported in .srs format, which you can open with the Safeguard Desktop Player application.

   For more information on the Safeguard Desktop Player, see Safeguard Desktop Player User Guide.

Viewing session details for data recorded by SPP

From the Search interface, you can view session details for data recorded by SPP. To view session details for data recorded by SPS, see Viewing session details for data recorded by SPS.

If you have joined your SPS to your SPP deployment, the icon in the Search interface indicates that data was recorded by SPP.

To search only for data recorded by SPP, enter origin:("VAULT") in the Search query field.

To view session details, click the button in the last column of the relevant session.

Figure 255: Search — Accessing session details

Figure 256: SPP session details

You can quickly visualize the session details in a timeline. To access the color legend for the timeline, click (Timeline Color Legend). Hovering your mouse over an event shows the position of that event in the timeline sidebar. It also shows the event as active.