Sigma rule: Telegram API Access

Rule

Title

Telegram API Access

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)

Date

2018-06-05

Modified

2023-05-18

File

rules/web/proxy_generic/proxy_telegram_api.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects suspicious requests to Telegram API without the usual Telegram User-Agent

Log source

category

proxy

Detection

selection:
    cs-host: 'api.telegram.org' # Often used by Bots
filter:
    c-useragent|contains:
        # Used https://core.telegram.org/bots/samples for this list
        - 'Telegram'
        - 'Bot'
condition: selection and not filter

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Legitimate use of Telegram bots in the company

Tags

• attack.command-and-control
• attack.t1071.001
• attack.t1102.002

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1071.001
• T1102.002

References

• https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2018/03/unit42-telerat-another-android-trojan-leveraging-telegrams-bot-api-to-target-iranian-users/
• https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2016/11/telecrypt-the-ransomware-abusing-telegram-api-defeated/
• https://www.welivesecurity.com/2016/12/13/rise-telebots-analyzing-disruptive-killdisk-attacks/

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