Hey folks, looking at the SandBlast zero-day protection in Quantum and wanting to put it through its paces. In a lab environment, of course. I'm used to testing my own APIs with crafted malformed requests, but this is a different beast.
What's the current best practice for generating a realistic, yet safe, simulation that would trigger the threat emulation and extraction engines? I'm thinking along two lines:
* **Weaponized document simulation:** I've seen PoCs for malicious macros and embedded exploits. Is there a known, safe way to package a "benign" payload that mimics the delivery method and structure of a real zero-day document, just without the harmful shellcode? Maybe using tools like `olefile` or `oletools` to craft something.
* **Network-based evasion test:** For the network protection side. Would a simple Python script that fragments packets or uses uncommon TCP flags be sufficient to test the IPS? Or is there a more sophisticated method to simulate, say, a ransomware command-and-control channel's initial beacon?
I want to avoid just running Metasploit modules that are years old—those signatures are definitely covered. The goal is to test the *zero-day/behavioral* aspect, not the known signature DB.
My lab setup is a small Kubernetes cluster with Quantum virtual appliances as gateways. Any scripts, config snippets, or tool recommendations would be awesome.
--builder
Latency is the enemy, but consistency is the goal.
I'm a security analyst at a mid-size financial services company, and we run Check Point Quantum with SandBlast on our network perimeter and endpoints for about two years now.
Here's my honest take from running these exact tests in our lab:
1. **Safe Payload Creation is the Real Challenge:** The best method we found is modifying existing exploit proof-of-concepts (PoCs). For a weaponized document test, take a public CVE PoC for, say, a malicious Word macro, and strip out the actual shellcode payload. Replace it with a simple, unique callback (like `curl http://yourlabserver/test`). Use `oletools` like `olevba` to analyze and repack. SandBlast threat emulation should flag the document structure and macro behavior, not just a signature.
2. **Network Evasion Needs More Than Fragmentation:** Simple packet manipulation scripts won't cut it. To really test the IPS, you need to simulate an encrypted C2 channel. We used a known ransomware's actual C2 protocol (like TrickBot's) in a contained lab, but with the final payload commands neutered. The extraction engine should detect the protocol and kill the session. Just fragmenting packets often gets caught by older, non-zero-day heuristics.
3. **You Must Isolate Your Lab Completely:** This sounds obvious, but the biggest "gotcha" is assuming your lab airgap is perfect. Double-check that your simulation traffic cannot possibly egress to a real server, even via DNS. We use a separate, physically disconnected network segment for these tests. A misstep here could trigger a real incident.
4. **Support for This is Contract-Dependent:** When we opened a ticket asking for best practice on simulation, their response depth depended entirely on our support tier. With our premium "Guard" tier, we got a detailed doc from their threat emulation team. Colleagues at other firms with basic support just got a link to the general admin guide. Expect to lean on your own team's research if you're not a top-tier enterprise customer.
My recommendation: if your goal is strictly to test the **document analysis and threat emulation** side, focus on the modified PoC method. It's the most direct way to see the extraction engine work.
If you're more concerned with **network behavioral detection**, tell us what your lab's external connectivity looks like and if you have experience safely reverse-engineering C2 protocols. That path has more risk.
Modifying actual C2 protocols in a lab? That's a level of effort most teams won't, and frankly shouldn't, sustain. You're basically running a mini malware analysis team just for a validation test.
The simpler, more cynical path is to just grab an EICAR test file embedded in a password-protected ZIP, sent over TLS. If SandBlast's extraction engine doesn't unpack and flag it, you've already learned something important without the overhead of simulating TrickBot's handshake. Testing the engine's limits is one thing, but rebuilding the threat just to prove it works feels like a vendor's job.
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You're already overthinking it. The idea of a "benign payload that mimics the delivery method" is a vendor fantasy. The behavioral engines in these systems are looking for specific, malicious actions. If you strip out the harmful shellcode, you've often stripped out the very behavior you're trying to test for.
Your Python script for packet fragmentation? That's checking a compliance box from 2010. It tells you nothing about zero-day protection. The real test is whether the system can decode and inspect a novel, encrypted C2 channel masquerading as something boring like a cloud storage API or a popular SaaS tool's webhook. Simulating *that* is where you'll see if the "zero-day" claim holds water, but it requires you to actually build a mock C2 with modern evasion, not just play with TCP flags.
Honestly, user441's cynical take about the EICAR-in-ZIP-over-TLS is more revealing than most lab exercises. If the extraction engine fails on that trivial obstacle, how's it going to handle a weaponized document hidden inside a nested, encrypted RAR archive attached to a Slack message downloaded via a logged-out browser session? That's the actual delivery chain now.