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SaaS Security Administrator's Guide

Policies for Detecting Threats

Table of Contents

Policies for Detecting Threats

Learn about the policies in Behavior Threats for identifying potential threats.

Policies instruct Behavior Threats to detect suspicious user activities, which might represent a threat to your organization. Each policy identifies a specific type user behavior that might represent a threat, such as a user accessing SaaS applications from unusual location or performing bulk download operations. When a policy is enabled and Behavior Threats detects the suspicious activity, Behavior Threats creates a threat incident for that user.

Behavior Threats provides the following types of policies:

Dynamic policies, which use historical data and machine learning to identify suspicious user activity. For these policies, Behavior Threats examines historical user data to determine a baseline for each user in your organization. This baseline is derived from the user’s past actions and also from the actions of other users in your organization. From this baseline, Behavior Threats identifies the most anomalous user actions as threat incidents.
Static policies, which use predefined thresholds to identify the suspicious user activity.

By default, all policies are enabled. However, you can disable a policy if you do not want Behavior Threats to display incidents for that policy.

Dynamic Policies for Detecting Threats

Learn about the dynamic policies in Behavior Threats for identifying potential threats.

Dynamic policies instruct Behavior Threats to detect anomalies in specific types of user activities by using historical data and machine learning. Behavior Threats separates these policies into the following behavioral situations:

Spike in Activity: Compared to historical data, a marked increase in a particular activity within a single hour.
Bulk Activity: Compared to historical data, a marked increase in a particular activity over a span of hours.
Time-Based Activity: Compared to historical data, an activity performed by a user at an unusual time.
Location-Based Activity: Compared to historical data, an activity performed by a user from an unusual location.
Sensitive Data-Transfer Activity: Compared to historical data, unusual user access to files containing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) data patterns.

The historical data that Behavior Threats uses to detect anomalous user behavior is at most 90 days.

Policies to Detect a Spike in Activity
Policy Name	Description
Detect spike in Application Usage	Instructs Behavior Threats to display spikes in usage for an individual application within a single hour. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents based on the number of distinct actions that a particular user performs in a particular application. Behavior Threats identifies usage spikes based on how the user typically interacts with the application. Behavior Threats logs a spike in application usage only if the spike is very unlikely compared to app usage across your organization.
Detect spike in Data Downloads or Uploads	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user uploads or downloads a large number of distinct files or folders within a single hour. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents base on the amount of data that the user downloaded or uploaded compared to how much data the user typically downloads or uploads. Behavior Threats logs a spike in upload or download activity only if the spike is very unlikely compared to other download and upload actions across your organization.
Detect spike in Share, Delete, and Edit actions	Instructs Behavior Threats to show spikes in Share, Delete or Edit actions across all SaaS applications by a single user within a single hour. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents based on the number of files a user shared, deleted, or edited compared to the number of files the user typically shares, deletes, or edits. Behavior Threats logs a spike in Share, Delete, or Edit actions only if it is very unlikely compared to actions taken by other users across your organization.
Detect spike in User Activity	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user performs excessive interactions with SaaS applications within a single hour. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents based on the number of user interactions with SaaS applications compared to the user's typical number of interactions. Behavior Threats logs a spike in user activity only if it is very unlikely compared to user activity across your organization.

Policies to Detect Bulk Activity
Policy Name	Description
Detect bulk Data Downloads or Uploads	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user uploads or downloads a large number of files or folders within a span of hours. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents based on the amount of data that the user downloaded or uploaded compared to how much data the user typically downloads or uploads during the same number of hours. Behavior Threats logs a bulk download or upload incident only if it is very unlikely compared to user download or upload activity across your organization.
Detect bulk User Activity	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user performs excessive interactions with a SaaS application within a span of hours. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents based on the number of user interactions with SaaS applications compared to the user's typical number of interactions within the same number of hours. Behavior Threats logs a bulk user activity incident only if it is very unlikely compared to user activity across your organization. Behavior Threats logs a bulk user activity incident only if it is very unlikely compared to user activity across your organization.

Policy to Detect Time-Based Activity
Policy Name	Description
Detect Abnormal User Activity Hours	Instructs Behavior Threats to show if users are active outside of the hours that they normally access the system For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents by comparing the time a user is active with their typical hours of activity. Behavior Threats logs an incident only if it estimates the probability of the user being active at a particular time is very low.

Policy to Detect Location-Based Activity
Policy Name	Description
Detect Abnormal Location Access	Instructs Behavior Threats to show if users access SaaS applications from an unusual location. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents by comparing the location from which a user accesses a SaaS application to typical access locations for the user and their peers. Behavior Threats logs an incident only if the probability of the user accessing an application from the location is very low.

Policy to Detect Sensitive Data Transfer
Policy Name	Description
Detect Unusual Access to Sensitive Data	Instructs Behavior Threats to show unusual user access to files containing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) data patterns. Behavior Threats logs the following unusual behavior: A user accessed many sensitive files containing DLP data patterns. A user accessed files containing data patterns that are not normally in the files that they access. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents by comparing the number of files containing DLP data patterns and the data patterns to the user's past behavior. Behavior Threats logs an incident only if it estimates the probability of the sensitive-data access is very low.

Static Policies for Detecting Threats

Learn about the static policies in Behavior Threats for identifying potential threats.

Static policies have preconfigured thresholds that Behavior Threats uses to detect suspicious user activity. Behavior Threats does not create a baseline of user activities or use machine learning to detect threat incidents for these policies. Instead, Behavior Threats records a threat incident if user actions reach the preconfigured threshold for the policy.

We initially introduced the static policies as predefined user activity policies in the Data Security product. These original versions are no longer available for newly provisioned tenants and will soon be deprecated for all tenants. If you are currently using the legacy predefined policies, we recommend that you transition to the new policies. By transitioning to the new policies, you ensure continued functionality and access to the latest features.

Static Policies
Policy Name	Description
Inactive Account Access	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user accesses an application by using an inactive account. This policy considers an account inactive if the account was not accessed in over 30 days. Inactive account access might indicate that the user’s account was breached.
Impossible Traveler	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user accesses an application from different locations within a time frame that could not accommodate travel between the locations. This policy determines the locations by IP addresses. This impossible travel might indicate that the user’s account is compromised.
Login Failures	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user has multiple failed login attempts to an application. Multiple login failures might indicate an attempt to breach the user account. For this policy, Behavior Threats logs incidents if there are more than 5 consecutive failed login attempts within 30 minutes.
Malware Detection	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user interacts with a file that contains malware. This activity might identify a malicious user and is a threat to your organization.
Risky IPs	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user accesses an application from a suspicious IP address. Suspicious IP addresses include malicious IP addresses identified by Unit 42, the Palo Alto Networks threat intelligence team. Suspicious IP addresses also include IP addresses of known Tor exit nodes and IP addresses belonging to Bulletproof Hosting Providers (BHPs). Access from a risky IP address likely indicates that the user’s account was breached.
Unsafe Location	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user accesses an application from a country that the United States Department of the Treasury considers unsafe. These countries are considered unsafe because they are known origins of cyberattacks. User access from an unsafe location likely indicates that the user’s account was breached.
Unsafe VPN	Instructs Behavior Threats to show when a user accesses an application from an unauthorized or unsanctioned VPN. These unsafe VPNs include personal VPNs and known consumer VPNs. The use of an unsafe VPN might indicate that the user is hiding their IP address to avoid auditing and tracking. The use of an unsafe VPN might also indicate that a malicious actor is attempting to decrypt traffic to steal user credentials.

Navigate to Behavior Threats

Dynamic Policies for Detecting Threats