Cloud causality view

See the causality of a cloud-type alert—the entire process execution chain that led up to the alert in the Cortex XDR app.

Notice

Requires a Cortex XDR Pro license.

The cloud causality view provides a powerful way to analyze and respond to Cortex XDR alerts and cloud audit logs. The scope of the cloud causality view is the Causality Instance (CI) of an event to which this alert pertains. The cloud causality view presents the event identity and /or IP address and the actions performed by the identity on the cloud resource. On each node in the CI chain, Cortex XDR provides information to help you understand what happened around the event.

The cloud causality view comprises the following sections:

Information Overview

Summarizes information about the alert you are analyzing, including the type of Cloud Provider, Project, and Region on which the event occurred. Select View Raw Log to view the raw log as provided by the Cloud Provider in JSON format.

Causality instance chain

Includes the graphical representation of the Causality Instance (CI) along with other information and capabilities to enable you to conduct your analysis.

The view presents a single event CI chain. The CI chain is built from Identity and Resource nodes. The Identity node represents for example keys, service accounts, and users, while the Resource node represents for example network interfaces, storage buckets, or disks. When available, the chain might also include an IP address and alerts that were triggered on the Identity and Cloud Resource.

The causality view provides an interactive way to view the CI chain for an alert. You can extend the CI chain, modify it, and move the chain around by selecting and dragging it. You can also enlarge or shrink the chain by using the size controls. To return the chain to its original position and size, click in the lower-right of the CI graph.

Causality data is displayed as follows:

• Identity node: Displays the name of the identity, generated alert information, and if available the associated IP address.

  To further investigate the user:

  1. Hover over an Identity node to display, if available, the identity Analytics Profiles.
  2. Select the Identity node to display in the Entity Data section additional information about the Identity entity.
  3. Select the Alert icon to display in the Entity Data section additional information about the alert.
• IP address node: Displays the IP address associated with the Identity.
• Operations: Lists the type of operations performed by the identity on the cloud resources. Hover over the operation to display the original operation name as provided by the cloud Provider.
• Cloud resource node: Displays the referenced resource on which the operation was performed. Cortex XDR displays information on the following resources:

Icon	Type of Resource
	Compute instance resource
	Disk resource
	General resource
	Image resource
	Network interface resource
	Security group (FW rule) resource
	Storage bucket resource
	Virtual private cloud (VPC) resource

To further investigate the resource:

1. Hover over a resource node to display, if available, the resource Analytics Profiles and Resource Editors statistics.
2. Select the resource node to display in the Entity Data section additional information about the resource entity.

All Events table

Displays up to 100,000 related events and up to 1,000 related alerts. In the All Events table, Cortex XDR displays detailed information about each of the related events. To simplify your investigation, Cortex XDR scans your Cortex XDR data aggregating the events that have the same Identity or Resource and displays the entry with an aggregated icon. Right-click and select Show Grouped Events to view the aggregated entries.

Entries highlighted in red indicate that the specific event triggered an alert. To continue the investigation, right-click to View in XQL.

To continue the investigation, in the Alerts table, right-click an alert to see the available actions.