IBM QRadar v1.5.0

About the connector

IBM QRadar SIEM helps your business by detecting anomalies, uncovering advanced threats and removing false positives. It consolidates log events and network flow data from thousands of devices, endpoints, and applications distributed throughout a network.

This document provides information about the IBM QRadar connector, which facilitates automated interactions, with a QRadar server using FortiSOAR™ playbooks. Add the IBM QRadar connector as a step in FortiSOAR™ playbooks and perform automated operations, such as automatically getting information about the offenses and details of the offenses from QRadar and also querying a QRadar device.

Version information

Connector Version: 1.5.0d

FortiSOAR™ Version Tested on: 5.1.0-464

IBM QRadar Version Tested on: 7.2.8

Authored By: Fortinet

Certified: Yes

Release Notes for version 1.5.0

Following enhancements have been made to the IBM QRadar connector in version 1.5.0:

• Added the following new operations and playbooks:
  • Get Offense Notes
  • Create Note
• Enhanced the Create Record step in the > IBM QRadar > Create Alert playbook to allow users to enter only an offense ID in the Source ID field and also updated the Source Type field to include space between categories.
• Enhanced the IBM QRadar > Post Create Alert > Fetch Events data ingestion playbook to provide users with the ability to limit the number of events that will be fetched from IBM QRadar using the FortiSOAR™ Data Ingestion Wizard. Users can specify the maximum number of events to be fetched for an offense in the Event Record Limit field in the Fetch Data Sample screen in the FortiSOAR™ Data Ingestion Wizard. For information about data ingestion, see the Ingesting IBM QRadar data using the Data Ingestion Wizard section that is present later in this article and the "Data Ingestion" chapter in the FortiSOAR™ product documentation.

Installing the connector

From FortiSOAR™ 5.0.0 onwards, use the Connector Store to install the connector. For the detailed procedure to install a connector, click here.
You can also use the yum command to install connectors. Connectors provided by FortiSOAR™ are delivered using a FortiSOAR™ repository. Therefore, you must set up your FortiSOAR™ repository and run the yum command as a root user to install connectors:

yum install cyops-connector-qradar

Prerequisites to configuring the connector

• You must have the IP address of the QRadar server to which you will connect and perform the automated operations and API token to access that server.
• To access the FortiSOAR™ UI, ensure that port 443 is open through the firewall for the FortiSOAR™ instance.
• To automatically forward offenses from the QRadar UI to FortiSOAR™ directly, you must install and configure the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar server. See the Installing the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar Server section.
• You must have the appropriate access to the IBM QRadar API to perform connector actions. The required permissions have been defined in the RESTful API documentation.
  The IBM QRadar connector specifically uses: /api/ariel/* and /api/siem/* APIs, therefore ensure that you have the appropriate access as required by these APIs.

Configuring the connector

For the procedure to configure a connector, click here.

Configuration parameters

In FortiSOAR™, on the Connectors page, click the IBM QRadar connector row (if you are in the Grid view on the Connectors page) and in the Configurations tab enter the required configuration details:

Parameter	Description
Address	IP address of the QRadar server from where the connector gets offenses information and to which you connect and perform automated operations.
API Token	API token to access the QRadar server to which you connect and perform automated operations.
API Version	Version of the QRadar API to be used for performing automated operations.
Verify SSL	Specifies whether the SSL certificate for the server is to be verified or not. Defaults to True.

Installing the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar Server

If you want to forward offenses to FortiSOAR™ from the QRadar UI directly, then you require to install the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar server. The extension zip file (CyberSponse_1.1.0.zip) is attached with this document. Upload and install the extension on the QRadar console following the steps described in the following IBM document: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SS42VS_7.2.7/com.ibm.qradar.doc/t_cmt_importing_extensions.html.

After the installation, the CyberSponse Integration icon appears in the Plug-ins section of the Admin tab.

Click the CyberSponse Integration icon to open the Server Configuration dialog. Enter the details of the CyberSponse server to which you want to forward the offenses and then click Save.

Ensure that the QRadar server has connectivity to the FortiSOAR™ server and can send requests to the FortiSOAR™ instance on port 443. Now, you can forward offenses to FortiSOAR™ by using the Create CyOPs alert button in the Offense Summary Toolbar as shown in the following image:

Clicking the Create CyOPs alert button sends a POST trigger to the https://<CyOPs>/api/triggers/1/qradar with the payload {“Offense_ID”: <id>} URL.
The API - Push Offense From QRadar included playbook listens to this API trigger and fetches all the data related to the offense specified in the offense id and creates a FortiSOAR™ alert. You can verify the integration with the help of this playbook or make a copy of the playbook and update it as per your requirement. If you make a copy, deactivate the included playbook, to avoid two playbooks acting on the same API trigger.

Actions supported by the connector

The following automated operations can be included in playbooks, and you can also use the annotations to access operations from FortiSOAR™ release 4.10.0 onwards:

Function	Description	Annotation and Category
Get Offenses from QRadar	Retrieves a list of offenses from the QRadar server based on the filter string that you have specified.	get_offenses Investigation
Get Events Related to an Offense	Retrieves details of events associated with a QRadar offense, from the QRadar server, based on the QRadar offense ID that you have specified.	get_events Investigation
Make an Ariel Query to QRadar	Executes an Ariel query on the QRadar server. QRadar uses the Ariel Query Language (AQL) to search for offenses or events based on query parameters.	run_query Investigation
Get Offense Closing Reasons	Retrieves a list of closing reasons associated with all offenses from the QRadar server.	get_offense_closing_reasons Remediation
Close Offense	Closes an offense on the QRadar server based on the offense ID that you have specified.	close_offense Remediation
Get Source IP Addresses	Retrieves IP address details associated with source address IDs from the QRadar server, based on the source address IDs that you have specified	ip_details Investigation
Get Destination IP Addresses	Retrieves IP address details associated with a destination address IDs from the QRadar server, based on the destination address IDs that you have specified	ip_details Investigation
Invoke QRadar REST API	Invokes a function to Get or Post an API endpoint on the QRadar server.	api_call Miscellaneous
Get Offense Types	Retrieves a list containing IDs of all the offense types from the QRadar server.	get_offense_type Investigation
Manipulate Reference Set Content	Adds or deletes the content that you have specified from a specified reference set on QRadar.	handle_reference_set_value Investigation
Get Offense Notes	Retrieves a list of notes associated with a specified offense in QRadar based on the offense ID you have specified.	get_notes Remediation
Create Note	Creates a note for a specified offense in QRadar based on the offense ID you have specified.	add_notes Remediation

operation: Get Offenses from QRadar

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Filter String	Filter string based on which you want to retrieve the list of offenses from QRadar. For example, assigned_to="admin".

Output

The JSON output contains a list of offenses retrieved from the QRadar server, based on the filter string that you have specified.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"source_count": "",
"credibility": "",
"status": "",
"categories": [
""
],
"protected": "",
"offense_source": "",
"event_count": "",
"closing_user": "",
"closing_reason_id": "",
"policy_category_count": "",
"last_updated_time": 1501624285172,
"severity": "",
"username_count": "",
"description": "",
"assigned_to": "",
"destination_networks": [
""
],
"security_category_count": "",
"start_time": 1501624284334,
"id": "",
"offense_type": "",
"relevance": "",
"device_count": "",
"magnitude": "",
"domain_id": "",
"local_destination_address_ids": [
""
],
"inactive": "",
"source_address_ids": [
""
],
"category_count": "",
"source_network": "",
"local_destination_count": "",
"flow_count": "",
"follow_up": "",
"close_time": "",
"remote_destination_count": ""
}

operation: Get Events Related to an Offense

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
QRadar Offense ID	Offense ID based on which you want to retrieve events from QRadar.
Offense Start Time	Number of milliseconds since epoch from the offense was started.
Offense Last Update Time	Number of milliseconds since epoch from the offense was last modified.
Max Events to return	(Optional) Maximum number of events that this operation should return.

Output

A JSON output contains details of events associated with a QRadar offense, retrieved from the QRadar server, based on the QRadar offense ID that you have specified.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"events": [
{
"starttime": "",
"category": "",
"username": "",
"logsourceid": "",
"eventcount": "",
"protocolid": "",
"identityip": "",
"sourceip": "",
"qid": "",
"destinationip": "",
"magnitude": "",
"sourceport": "",
"destinationport": ""
}
]
}

operation: Make an Ariel Query to QRadar

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Ariel Search String	Ariel query that you want to be run on the QRadar server.

Output

The JSON output contains details of offenses or events depending on the query that you run on the QRadar server. QRadar uses the Ariel Query Language (AQL) to search for offenses or events based on query parameters.

The output contains a non-dictionary value.

operation: Get Offense Closing Reasons

Input parameters

None

Output

The JSON output contains a list of closing reasons associated with all offenses retrieved from the QRadar server.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"is_reserved": "",
"id": "",
"text": "",
"is_deleted": ""
}

operation: Close Offense

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Offense ID	ID of the offense that you want to close on the QRadar server.
Offense Closing Reason - ID	ID of the offense closing reason using which you want to close the offense on the QRadar server.
Closure Note	(Optional) Note that you want to associate with the offense that you want to close on the QRadar server.

Output

The JSON output contains the updated offense details, including the status (should be closed) of the specified offense retrieved from the QRadar server.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"source_count": "",
"credibility": "",
"status": "",
"categories": [],
"protected": "",
"offense_source": "",
"event_count": "",
"closing_user": "",
"closing_reason_id": "",
"policy_category_count": "",
"last_updated_time": "",
"severity": "",
"username_count": "",
"description": "",
"assigned_to": "",
"destination_networks": [],
"security_category_count": "",
"start_time": "",
"id": "",
"offense_type": "",
"relevance": "",
"device_count": "",
"magnitude": "",
"domain_id": "",
"local_destination_address_ids": [],
"inactive": "",
"source_address_ids": [],
"category_count": "",
"source_network": "",
"local_destination_count": "",
"flow_count": "",
"follow_up": "",
"close_time": "",
"remote_destination_count": ""
}

operation: Get Source IP Addresses

The offense data provided by QRadar contains the IDs of the source addresses. Use this operation to fetch the IP address details for the specified source address IDs.

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Source Address Ids	IDs of source addresses based on which you want to retrieve IP address details from the QRadar server. For example, [3,4,5].

Output

The JSON output contains the IP address details associated with the specified source address IDs, retrieved from the QRadar server.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"id": "",
"magnitude": "",
"source_ip": "",
"network": ""
}

operation: Get Destination IP Addresses

The offense data provided by QRadar contains the IDs of the destination addresses. Use this operation to fetch the IP address details for the specified destination address IDs.

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Destination Address Ids	IDs of destination addresses based on which you want to retrieve IP address details from the QRadar server. For example, [3,4,5].

Output

The JSON output contains the IP address details associated with the specified destination address IDs, retrieved from the QRadar server.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"local_destination_ip": "",
"id": "",
"magnitude": "",
"network": ""
}

operation: Invoke QRadar REST API

If you require to invoke a QRadar API apart from the functions that we provide, you can use this function to directly invoke the QRadar API. Refer to IBM documentation for more information on the QRadar REST APIs: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSKMKU/com.ibm.qradar.doc_cloud/t_adm_restapi_using.html.

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Endpoint	Specifies the REST endpoint. For example, siem or offenses.
Request Method	Select the request method. You can choose between GET or POST. If you select GET, then you should specify the Request Parameters parameter. In the Request parameters parameter, specify the request parameters for the specified endpoint. If you select POST, then you can specify either the Request Parameters in JSON Format or the Request Payload in JSON Format parameter. In these parameters, specify either the request parameters or request JSON payload for the specified endpoint.
Headers in json format	(Optional) Additional JSON formatted headers. Following headers are already added by the connector: 'Accept': 'application/JSON', 'Content-Type': 'application/JSON', 'SEC': <token>, 'Version': <api_version>,

Output

The JSON output contains the JSON response of the API invoked.

The output contains a non-dictionary value.

operation: Get Offense Types

Input parameters

None

Output

The JSON output contains a list containing IDs of all the offense types retrieved from the QRadar server. You can use the offense type IDs as a filter criterion in the Get Offenses operation.

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"id": "",
"property_name": "",
"database_type": "",
"name": "",
"custom": ""
}

operation: Manipulate Reference Set Content

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Request Method	Select the request method option of the operation that you want to perform on the specified reference set in QRadar. You can choose from Retrieves Value, Add Value, or Delete Value.
Reference Set Name	Name of the reference set in which you want to perform the operation based on the option you have specified in the Request Method. If you choose Add Value as the Request Method, then this operation will add the specified value to the reference set you have specified in this field. If you choose Delete Value as the Request Method, then this operation will delete the specified value from the reference set you have specified in this field. If you choose Retrieves Value as the Request Method, then this operation will retrieve the values of the reference set you have specified in this field.
Value	Value that you want to add or remove from the specified reference set. You must specify the value in this field if you have chosen Add Value or Delete Value as the Request Method.

Output

The output is conditional and based on the request method that you choose.

For example, if you choose Retrieves Value as the Request Method, then the output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"data": [
{
"first_seen": "",
"last_seen": "",
"source": "",
"value": ""
}
],
"message": "",
"element_type": "",
"timeout_type": "",
"name": "",
"number_of_elements": "",
"creation_time": "",
}

Or for example, if you choose Add Value or Delete Value as the Request Method, then the output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"message": "",
"element_type": "",
"timeout_type": "",
"name": "",
"number_of_elements": "",
"creation_time": "",
}

operation: Get Offense Notes

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Offense ID	ID of the offense whose associated notes you want to retrieve from the QRadar server.

Output

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"username": "",
"id": "",
"create_time": "",
"note_text": ""
}

operation: Create Note

Input parameters

Parameter	Description
Offense ID	ID of the offense for which you want to create a note on the QRadar server.
Closure Note	Text of the closure note that you want to create for the specified offense on the QRadar server.

Output

The output contains the following populated JSON schema:
{
"username": "",
"id": "",
"create_time": "",
"note_text": ""
}

Included playbooks

The Sample - IBM QRadar - 1.5.0 playbook collection comes bundled with the IBM QRadar connector. This playbook contains steps using which you can perform all supported actions. You can see the bundled playbooks in the Automation > Playbooks section in FortiSOAR™ after importing the IBM QRadar connector.

• API - Push Offense From QRadar:
  Requires installation and configuration of the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar server. See the Installing the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar Server section.
• > Close Offense
• Close QRadar Offenses
• Create Note
• Get Destination IP Addresses
• Get Events Related to an Offense
• Get Offense Notes
• Get Offenses
• Get Offense Type
  Requires installation and configuration of the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar server. See the Installing the CyberSponse Application on the QRadar Server section.
• Get Source IP Addresses
• > IBM QRadar > Create Alert
• > IBM QRadar > Fetch
• IBM QRadar > Ingest
• >> IBM QRadar >Init
• >> IBM QRadar > Init Macros
• IBM QRadar > Post Create Alert > Fetch Events
• Invoke QRadar REST API
• Manipulate Reference Set Content
• >> QRadar > On Offense Modified
• Run Ariel Query

Note: If you are planning to use any of the sample playbooks in your environment, ensure that you clone those playbooks and move them to a different collection since the sample playbook collection gets deleted during the connector upgrade and delete.

Ingesting IBM QRadar data using the Data Ingestion Wizard

Use the Data Ingestion Wizard to easily ingest data into FortiSOAR™ by pulling offenses from IBM QRadar. For more information on the Data Ingestion Wizard, see the "Connectors Guide: in FortiSOAR™ product documentation.

Process of ingesting offenses from IBM QRadar using the Data Ingestion Wizard

1. Log on to FortiSOAR™.
2. On the left navigation pane, click Automation > Connectors.
   On the Connectors page, you will see the list of installed connectors, either in the card view or the grid/list view.
3. Click IBM QRadar v1.5.0.
4. On the Connector Configuration pane, click Configure Data Ingestion to display the Data Ingestion Wizard.
5. On the Welcome screen of the Data Ingestion Wizard, click the Let' Start.. button to display the Fetch Sample Data screen.
6. Sample data is required to create a field mapping between your IBM QRadar data and FortiSOAR™.
   1. In the Search Query field, type the query based on which you want to retrieve the list of offenses from IBM QRadar.
      For example, if you want to fetch all "Open" offenses from IBM QRadar, then type status="Open" in the Search Query field.
   2. In the Pull Offense in the last x minutes field, type the time in minutes from when you want to pull offenses from IBM QRadar.
   3. In the Timezone of the QRadar server field, type the timezone in which your IBM QRadar server is located. For example, UTC.
   4. In the Event Record Limit field, type the maximum number of events that you want to pull for an offense from the IBM QRadar server.
      
   5. Click Fetch Sample Data.
7. On the Field Mapping screen, map the fields of the sample data to the fields present in FortiSOAR™ as follows:
   1. The Field Mapping screen displays the Sample Data on the right side and the Field Mapping (FortiSOAR™ fields) on the left side. The sample data is in the form of a Key-Value pair.
      From the Module drop-down list that appears next to Field Mapping, select the FortiSOAR™ module for which you want to map the fields. The default module, which is Alerts will be already be selected.
      Note: If you select any module other than the default module, you will require to remap all the fields.
      Also, some fields such as Name and some picklists can come pre-mapped with their jinja value. You do not require to re-map these fields unless you want to override their default values.
   2. To map a field, click the key in the sample data to add jinja for the field.
      For example, map the Severity field in FortiSOAR™ by clicking severity from the IBM QRadar sample data. Once you click severity, {{vars.sourcedata["severity"]}} is added in the Severity field.
      Next, you must map the items of picklists. For example, the Severity picklist in FortiSOAR™ has items such as Minimal, Low, Medium, High, and Critical. These picklist items can be mapped as per the values defined in the source. Also, more than one picklist item in FortiSOAR™ can map to a single value in the source. For example, both Minimal and Low can be mapped to 3, Medium can be mapped 2, High can be mapped to 1, and Critical can be mapped to 0.
      You can also map one picklist item in FortiSOAR™ to two values or more values in the source, for example, you can map Low severity to 5, 6. In this case, if the severity field in IBM QRadar has value 5 or 6, then all cases with severity 5 or 6 will be mapped to Low severity in FortiSOAR™.
      You can also specify mapping of a range of values, lesser than and greater than values. For example, if you map Minimal severity in FortiSOAR™ to 1..4 this means that if the severity field in IBM QRadar contains any value between 1 to 4they will be mapped to Minimal severity in FortiSOAR™. Similarly, if you map Medium severity in FortiSOAR™ to >6 this means that if the severity field in IBM QRadar contains any value greater than 6, then they will be mapped to Medium severity in FortiSOAR™.
      Note: Multiple expressions of type "number" must be separated by a space. Also, in case of a range there must be two dots between the numbers.
      You can also specify string values in a picklist such as, Open, In Progress, Closed, etc. Multiple expressions of type "string" must be comma-separated.
      Once you are satisfied with the mappings, click Save and Continue.
8. (Optional) On the Scheduling screen, you can specify the schedule for data ingestion from the connector into FortiSOAR™, i.e., you can specify the polling frequency to IBM QRadar, so that the content gets pulled from IBM QRadar into FortiSOAR™. By default, scheduling is set to pull data every 5 minutes.
9. The Summary screen displays a brief summary of the mapping done and it also contains links to the modified playbooks.
   Click Done to complete the data ingestion.

Notes on data ingestion

• The default ingestion flow fetches offenses from IBM QRadar based on the user-specified query and creates FortiSOAR™ alerts. After the alerts are created, another query to IBM QRadar is made to fetch offense-related events, which is then updated into the source data of the alert.
• If you change the default module for data ingestion, which is set as Alerts to any other module, for example, Incidents, you need to make the following updates:
  • In the IBM QRadar > Post Create Alert > Fetch Events playbook, in the Start step (Post-Create trigger) step, in the Resource field, update the resource from Alerts to the module based on which you want to fetch the data.
    Also, update the Resource field in the Update Alert step (Update Record step) from Alerts to the module based on which you want to fetch the data.
  • Similarly, In the > QRadar > Create Alert playbook, in the Add a note of offense update step, in the "Correlations" section, you will see an Alerts field that is being set. If you are using a module other than "Alert", then you will see a field with that name and you will require to set that field. For example, if you are using the "Incidents" module, then you will see the Incidents field and you will need to set that to ["{{vars.steps.Create_Record['@id']}}"]
  • If you select any module other than the default module, you will require to remap all the fields.
• If you want to the IBM QRadar connector to ingest custom fields, then in the IBM QRadar > Post Create Alert > Fetch Events playbook, in the Set Variable step, add custom fields to the event_query_params variable. By default, this is set as starttime,sourceip,destinationip,username,QIDNAME(qid) as 'Event_Name',CATEGORYNAME(category) AS 'Category_Name',LOGSOURCENAME(logsourceid) as 'Log_Source'
  If you have already run the data ingestion wizard, you can change the IBM QRadar > Post Create Alert > Fetch Events playbook that is located at: Settings > System Fixtures > Data Ingestion Playbooks.

Known Issues and Workarounds

Issue: Using the Data Ingestion Wizard, in the Fetch Data screen, you specify the timezone to fetch events from IBM QRadar. This, in turn, creates a global variable named QRadarTimeZone. The value of this global variable does not get populated with the time zone you have specified. Due to this, the events that are fetched for the offense are not based on the specified timezone.

Resolution: To resolve this issue, open the >> IBM QRadar > Init playbook in the playbook designer and click Options > Edit Parameters. In the Parameters dialog, click Add Parameter and enter qradar_timezone and click Submit. Then, open the > IBM QRadar > Fetch playbook in the playbook designer and open the Environment Setup step. You will see the qradar_timezone parameter in this step, in which you should enter {{vars.qradar_timezone}}. This, in turn, passes the timezone value that you have specified in the Ingestion Wizard to the QRadarTimeZone global variable. Thereby, events will be fetched for the offense based on the specified timezone.

CyberSponse_1.1.0