Sigma rule: High DNS subdomain requests rate per domain

A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-6d08783cb015, updated 2019-11-04T00:00:00.000Z.

Rule

Title
High DNS subdomain requests rate per domain
Status
unsupported
Level
high
Author
Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community
Date
2019/10/21
Modified
2019/11/04
File
unsupported/network/net_dns_high_subdomain_rate.yml
Commit
ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

High rate of unique Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN) requests per root domain (eTLD+1) in short period of time

Log source

category
dns

Detection

dns_question_name:
    query: "*"
default_list_of_well_known_domains:
    query_etld_plus_one:
        - "akadns.net"
        - "akamaiedge.net"
        - "amazonaws.com"
        - "apple.com"
        - "apple-dns.net"
        - "cloudfront.net"
        - "icloud.com"
        - "in-addr.arpa"
        - "google.com"
        - "yahoo.com"
        - "dropbox.com"
        - "windowsupdate.com"
        - "microsoftonline.com"
        - "s-microsoft.com"
        - "office365.com"
        - "linkedin.com"
timeframe: 15m
condition: count(subdomain) per query_etld_plus_one per computer_name > 200 and not default_list_of_well_known_domains
#    for each host in timeframe
#                for each dns_question_etld_plus_one
#                    if number of dns_question_name > 200
#                        dns_question_etld_plus_one is not in default_list_of_well_known_domains

False positives (as the rule lists them)

  • Legitimate domain name requested, which should be added to whitelist

Tags

  • attack.exfiltration
  • attack.t1048

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/unsupported/network/net_dns_high_subdomain_rate.yml

Sources and licences

  • SigmaHQ

    "High DNS subdomain requests rate per domain" by Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/unsupported/network/net_dns_high_subdomain_rate.yml.
    Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License

    Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1

Cite this page

Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: High DNS subdomain requests rate per domain",
entity page, dataset version ref-6d08783cb015, updated 2019-11-04T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/8198e9a8-e38f-4ba5-8f16-882b1c0f880e (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule 8198e9a8-e38f-4ba5-8f16-882b1c0f880e, 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.