VEN Firewall Tampering Detection

The PCE distributes the latest policy applicable to each workload to ensure that the VEN receives the latest policy updates. The VEN internally creates and maintains a set of meta information of these rules, which it uses to detect tampering.

Automatic History of Firewall Changes

Changes to the firewall on a workload are historically recorded for an audit trail. Up to 10 changes to the firewall history are saved. The history is viewable via the PCE Support Reports.

Host Firewall Tampering Protection

If a host firewall is tampered with, firewall tampering protection start firewall validation procedure. If the outcome detects any of the Illumio-added rules have been tampered, then the restoration procedure starts.

The procedure attempts to fetch a new security policy from the PCE, but if it fails due to a network connectivity issue, you can try to recover your last known good copy of a policy stored locally. The last step is validating the policy against the meta information of the policy. The tampering attempt is reported to the PCE as an agent.tampering event.

A host firewall tampering event occurs when another administrator or an attacker:

Adds a firewall rule to the Illumio firewall compartment.
Modifies a firewall rule added by Illumio.
Deletes a firewall rule added by Illumio.
Deletes all firewall rules (flush) added by Illumio.

The norm is that Illumio tries to detect tampering attempts only to Illumio firewall policy only and not to others.

Workload OS	Tampering Detection
Linux	The VEN monitors any underlying iptables, ipset, and IPsec changes. Once the VEN detects a tampering attempt, it validates the snapshot of iptables/ipset/IPsec against the firewall policy validation meta information.
Windows	The VEN monitors any changes in the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) layer and the runtime IPsec policy. If it detects a change, it starts the validation and restore procedure.
AIX/Solaris	On AIX (all versions) and Solaris (versions before 11.4) , the VEN monitors any underlying ipfilter changes. If the VEN detects a tampering attempt, it validates the snapshot of the ipfilter against the firewall policy validation meta information. On Solaris versions 11.4 and later, the VEN checks packet filter. On AIX and Solaris, the feature is enabled by default and updated every 10 minutes. On AIX, the VEN monitors any changes in the runtime IPsec policy. If it detects a change, it starts the validation and restore procedure.

Host Firewall Tampering Alerts

Host firewall tampering alerts can be viewed:

On the host VEN.
In the PCE web console.
In the return from a call to the /eventsIllumio Core REST API.
In the return from a query in Splunk or other SIEM software.

View Tampering Alerts on VEN Host

Workload OS	Procedure
Linux	As root, separately execute the following commands: Tail the VEN log file to see suspected tampering events and hash comparisons: tail -f /opt/illumio_ven_data/log/platform.log INFO: Possible tamper detected... INFO: FW iptables checksums ... (compares security policy hashes to see if anything changed)
Windows	Check `\programdata\illumio\log\platform.log` and search "`!!!Tampering detected`" Note This alter displays "Filtering Platform Policy Change" when a tampering event is detected. Double-click the alert for detailed information.

Workload OS

Procedure

Linux

As root, separately execute the following commands:

Tail the VEN log file to see suspected tampering events and hash comparisons:

tail -f /opt/illumio_ven_data/log/platform.log

INFO: Possible tamper detected...
INFO: FW iptables checksums ... (compares security policy hashes to see if anything changed)

Windows

Check \programdata\illumio\log\platform.log and search "!!!Tampering detected"

Note

This alter displays "Filtering Platform Policy Change" when a tampering event is detected. Double-click the alert for detailed information.

View Tampering Alerts Sent to PCE

PCE Web Console

To view agent.tampering events in the PCE web console, navigate to Troubleshooting > Events.

Double-click an agent.tampering event to see its details.

Illumio Core REST APIs

To return all tampering events for an organization, execute the following command using your organization URI. For more information, see Events in the REST API Developer Guide.

Example Curl Command to Get Information for All agent.tampering Events:

curl -i -X GET https://pce.example.com:8443/api/v2/orgs/1/events/?event_type=agent.tampering -H "Accept: application/json" -u $KEY:$TOKEN

Example Curl Command to Get Information for a Specific agent.tampering Event:

curl -i -X GET https://pce.example.com:8443/api/v2/orgs/1/events/some_event_ID -H "Accept: application/json" -u $KEY:$TOKEN

Example JSON Response Body from Getting an agent.tampering Event:

{
    "href": "/orgs/1/events/some_event_ID",
    "timestamp": "2019-06-17T05:42:10.419Z",
    "pce_fqdn": "someName.someDomain",
    "created_by": {
        "agent": {
            "href": "/orgs/1/agents/xxxxx",
            "hostname": "someHostname"
        }
    },
    "event_type": "agent.tampering",
    "status": "success",
    "severity": "err",
    "action": {
        "uuid": "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "api_endpoint": "FILTERED",
        "api_method": "PUT",
        "http_status_code": 204,
        "src_ip": "xx.xxx.xx.xx"
    },
    "resource_changes": [],
    "notifications": [
        {
            "uuid": "yyyyyyyy-yyyy-yyyy-yyyy-yyyyyyyyyyyy",
"notification_type": "workload.oob_policy_changes",
            "info": {
                "tampering_revert_succeeded": true,
                "beginning_timestamp": "2019-06-17T05:42:10Z",
                "ending_timestamp": "2019-06-17T05:42:10Z",
                "num_events": 1
            }
        }
    ]
}

Splunk or Other SIEM Software

If you send VEN events received by the PCE to Splunk or other SIEM software, query for agent.tampering events in accordance with the SIEM vendor's query procedures.

Illumio Core 25.2.10 Administration Guide