Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics: Your Shield Against Cyber Threats
Understanding Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA)
Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA) is a robust application designed to protect organizations from a myriad of cyber threats. It provides alerts about network attacks, thereby ensuring security. In essence, it can be referred to as Microsoft’s Intrusion Detection System (IDS).
How Microsoft ATA Works
Microsoft ATA employs a network parsing engine that monitors and distinguishes packets by examining network traffic over protocols such as Kerberos, DNS, RPC, and NTLM. It also gathers information through these protocols. This data collection is facilitated through Domain Controller, DNS servers, ATA Gateway, and ATA Lightweight Gateway.
ATA studies the behavior of entities and users within an organization by analyzing logs and events on the system, thereby creating a behavioral profile. It gathers information about logs and events from structures like SIEM Integration, Windows Event Forwarding (WEF), and Windows Event Collector.
Predictive Capabilities of Microsoft ATA
Microsoft ATA predicts how attackers might gather information on the network, which systems they might target, and how they might proceed post-exploitation. It provides insights into how an attacker might exploit various entry points to compromise target systems, thereby enabling early warnings during an attack.
Threat Classification
Microsoft ATA categorizes cyber threats into three main types:
- Malicious Attacks: ATA identifies suspicious activities, providing details about the perpetrator, the timing, and the nature of the suspicious activity. Techniques classified as malicious attacks include Pass The Ticket, Pass The Hash, Overpass The Hash, Forged PAC (MS14-068), Golden Ticket, Malicious Replications, Reconnaissance Activities, Brute-Force Attacks, and Remote Code Execution.
- Abnormal Behaviors: Using machine learning, ATA detects and reports suspicious activities and abnormal behaviors on the network. Examples include unusual logins, unknown threats, password sharing, and changes to sensitive groups.
- Security Issues and Risks: This category includes the breakdown of trust structures, the use of weak protocols, and known protocol security vulnerabilities.
Microsoft ATA Architecture
Microsoft ATA can monitor Domain Controller network traffic by using physical and virtual keys to perform port mirroring on an ATA Gateway. If an ATA Lightweight Gateway is directly added to the domain controller, port mirroring is not required. ATA can send Windows logs to any SIEM server or Domain Controller machine for analysis and necessary security measures.
Components of Microsoft ATA
The main components of Microsoft ATA are ATA Center, ATA Gateway, and ATA Lightweight Gateway.
ATA Center
The ATA Center receives network traffic and Windows logs related to the Domain Controller from the ATA Gateways and ATA Lightweight Gateways. It performs profiling, information gathering about the network, and deterministic detection of attacks. It uses machine learning and behavioral algorithms to detect abnormal behaviors and suspicious activities.
ATA Gateway
The ATA Gateway receives network traffic and Windows logs, sending them to the ATA Center machine. It performs the same functions as the ATA Lightweight Gateway.
ATA Lightweight Gateway
The ATA Lightweight Gateway is installed directly on the domain controller machine, eliminating the need for port mirroring between the domain controller and any server.
For more information on cybersecurity and related topics, you can refer to authoritative sources like NIST.
