20 Dec

20Dec

Author: CyberDudeBivash

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Related: cyberbivash.blogspot.com Daily Threat Intel by CyberDudeBivash

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Authoritative Standard by CyberDudeBivash

Built for SOC Analysts, Detection Engineers, Blue Teams, MSSPs, and CISOs operating in high-risk, high-compliance environments.

Purpose of This Checklist

This checklist is designed to help Security Operations Centers detect stealthy, low-noise, and telemetry-abuse attacks—including modern threats such as log hijacking, silent data interception, identity abuse, and SIEM poisoning.

Core principle: If attackers control telemetry, defenders lose visibility.

How to Use This Checklist

Use as a daily SOC validation runbook
Integrate into purple-team exercises
Apply during incident response triage
Include in SOC audits & maturity assessments
Package as a premium SOC capability framework

CYBERDUDEBIVASH SOC DETECTION CHECKLIST

Log Integrity & Telemetry Trust Controls

Verify cryptographic integrity or hashing of critical logs

Detect missing, delayed, or reordered log events

Monitor for sudden log-volume drops or surges

Alert on schema changes in structured logs (JSON/XML)

Detect overwritten timestamps, severity levels, or source fields

Validate log pipelines end-to-end (app → agent → SIEM)SOC Insight: Logs are evidence. Treat them as assets, not exhaust.

Log Injection & Hijacking Detection

Monitor for user-controlled input appearing in privileged log fields

Detect unexpected newline, delimiter, or control characters in logs

Flag abnormal context field growth (MDC / metadata abuse)

Correlate application errors with missing security logs

Identify duplicate or forged “success” events

Baseline normal log message templates and alert on drift

SIEM Poisoning & Visibility Attacks

Monitor parsing failures and silent drop events

Alert on excessive normalization errors

Track rule execution gaps despite active environments

Validate correlation rule inputs against raw logs

Detect suppression or downgrade of alert severity

Regularly test SIEM rules using synthetic attack eventsSOC Insight: A quiet SIEM during business hours is suspicious, not reassuring.

Identity & Authentication Abuse Detection

Detect authentication success without preceding request logs

Monitor session reuse across geographies or devices

Alert on token usage without corresponding login events

Correlate IAM logs with application and network telemetry

Identify abnormal MFA bypass patterns

Detect privilege escalation without change-management records

Application-Layer Stealth Attacks

Monitor excessive logging of sensitive fields (tokens, IDs, secrets)

Detect debug logging enabled in production

Alert on abnormal API call logging patterns

Identify inconsistent error vs success ratios

Monitor structured logging field manipulation

Correlate application logs with EDR/XDR signals

Network & Telemetry Correlation

Validate logs against network flow data (NetFlow / Zeek)

Detect data access without outbound traffic

Identify internal lateral movement with minimal logs

Correlate DNS, HTTP, and application events

Monitor encrypted traffic anomalies with no log traces

Alert on east-west traffic lacking application telemetry

Behavioral & Anomaly Detection

Baseline normal log generation per service

Detect off-hour administrative activity

Alert on repetitive low-severity events

Monitor long-lived sessions without renewal logs

Detect inconsistencies between user behavior and logs

Identify SOC “quiet zones” during active periods

Threat Hunting Validation

Hunt for missing logs where activity is expected

Perform “log gap analysis” per critical system

Cross-verify identity, network, and application timelines

Review historical logs for retroactive manipulation

Simulate log injection and verify detection

Validate detection coverage quarterly

Incident Response Readiness

Confirm forensic logging retention policies

Ensure logs are immutable during incidents

Validate chain-of-custody procedures

Confirm access control to logging systems

Test IR playbooks against stealth scenarios

Ensure SOC escalation paths are defined

SOC Maturity Scoring

Score	Maturity Level
0–30	Reactive SOC
31–60	Tool-Driven SOC
61–80	Intelligence-Led SOC
81–95	Threat-Resilient SOC
96–100	CyberDudeBivash-Grade SOC

CYBERDUDEBIVASH Authority Insight

Modern attackers no longer rush to exploit systems.

They corrupt visibility, poison telemetry, and outwait defenders.

If your SOC only detects loud attacks, it is already behind.

This checklist reflects real-world threat tradecraft, not theoretical security.

SOC Detection Playbook
MSSP Readiness Framework
Enterprise SOC Audit Kit
Blue-Team Capability Assessment
Compliance & Risk Validation Artifact