Sigma rule: Network Connection Initiated To Cloudflared Tunnels Domains
A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-bbbc06452e93, updated 2024-05-27T00:00:00.000Z.
Rule
- Title
- Network Connection Initiated To Cloudflared Tunnels Domains
- Status
- test
- Level
- medium
- Author
- Kamran Saifullah, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
- Date
- 2024-05-27
- File
- rules/windows/network_connection/net_connection_win_domain_cloudflared_communication.yml
- Commit
- ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84
Detects network connections to Cloudflared tunnels domains initiated by a process on the system.
Attackers can abuse that feature to establish a reverse shell or persistence on a machine.
Log source
- product
- windows
- category
- network_connection
Detection
selection:
Initiated: 'true'
DestinationHostname|endswith:
- '.v2.argotunnel.com'
- 'protocol-v2.argotunnel.com'
- 'trycloudflare.com'
- 'update.argotunnel.com'
condition: selectionFalse positives (as the rule lists them)
- Legitimate use of cloudflare tunnels will also trigger this.
Tags
- attack.exfiltration
- attack.command-and-control
- attack.t1567
- attack.t1572
MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names
Related rules
References
- https://defr0ggy.github.io/research/Abusing-Cloudflared-A-Proxy-Service-To-Host-Share-Applications/
- https://www.guidepointsecurity.com/blog/tunnel-vision-cloudflared-abused-in-the-wild/
- Internal Research
Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/network_connection/net_connection_win_domain_cloudflared_communication.yml
Sources and licences
SigmaHQ
"Network Connection Initiated To Cloudflared Tunnels Domains" by Kamran Saifullah, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/network_connection/net_connection_win_domain_cloudflared_communication.yml.
Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License
Cite this page
Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: Network Connection Initiated To Cloudflared Tunnels Domains",
entity page, dataset version ref-bbbc06452e93, updated 2024-05-27T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/7cd1dcdc-6edf-4896-86dc-d1f19ad64903 (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule 7cd1dcdc-6edf-4896-86dc-d1f19ad64903, commit ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84.
Pages change. The dataset version identifies the data, but no archive of old versions is kept, so this citation cannot be replayed later.