Overview of the Alerts page

The Alerts page consolidates all non-informational alerts from your detection sources, and helps you to analyze and triage the alerts on your system.

The Alerts page consolidates all non-informational alerts from your detection sources. This helps you efficiently triage the events you see each day. By analyzing an alert, you can better understand the cause of the alert, and take actions where required. The default alert retention period in Cortex XDR is 186 days.

To access the Alerts page, go to Incident Response → Incidents → Alerts Table.

By default, the Alerts page displays the security alerts received over the last seven days. Every 12 hours, the system enforces a cleanup policy to remove the oldest alerts once the maximum limit is exceeded.

To see detailed information about an alert, click an alert to open the alert panel. To investigate further, from the alert panel click Investigate or Investigate Causality Chain. For more information, see Triage and investigate alerts.

Standardized format of user names in alerts

Cortex XDR processes and displays the names of users in the following standardized format, also termed “normalized user”.

<company domain>\<username>

As a result, any alert triggered based on network, authentication, or login events displays the User Name in the standardized format in the Alerts and Incidents pages. This impacts every alert for Cortex XDR Analytics and Cortex XDR Analytics BIOC, including BIOC, and IOC alerts triggered on one of these event types.

Deduplicated FW alerts

To reduce noise in your environment, if firewall alerts with the same name and host are raised within 24 hours, the alerts are deduplicated. A label indicates the number of deduplicated alerts up to 1,000 alert counts, larger quantities display as 1000+.

For more information, see Alert deduplication.

Featured fields

You can highlight alerts that are important to you by tagging specific alert attributes, such as host names, user names, IP addresses, and Active Directory, as featured fields. This can help you track alerts in the Alerts table. For more information, see Create a featured alert field.

Alert field descriptions

The following table describes both the default fields and additional optional fields that you can add to the alerts table using the column manager.

Field	Description
Status Indicator ( )	Identifies whether there is enough endpoint data to analyze an alert.
	Check box to select one or more alerts on which to perform actions. Select multiple alerts to assign all selected alerts to an analyst, or to change the status or severity of all selected alerts.
ACTION	Action taken by the alert sensor, either Detected or Prevented with action status displayed in parenthesis.
ADDED IN CONTENT VERSION	Content version in which the rule that generated the alert was first introduced or significantly changed.
AGENT OS SUB TYPE	Operating system subtype of the agent from which the alert was triggered.
ALERT ARRIVAL TIMESTAMP	Time that the alert was stored in Cortex XDR.
ALERT ID	Unique identifier that Cortex XDR assigns to each alert.
ALERT NAME	Module that triggered the alert. Alerts that match an alert starring policy also display a purple star.
ALERT SOURCE	Source of the alert.
APP-ID	Related App-ID for an alert. App-ID is a traffic classification system that determines what an application is irrespective of port, protocol, encryption (SSH or SSL) or any other evasive tactic used by the application. When known, you can also pivot to the Palo Alto Networks Applipedia entry that describes the detected application.
APP CATEGORY	APP-ID category name associated with a firewall alert.
APP SUBCATEGORY	APP-ID subcategory name associated with a firewall alert.
APP TECHNOLOGY	APP-ID technology name associated with a firewall alert.
CATEGORY	Alert category based on the alert source. An example of an Cortex XDR agent alert category is Exploit Modules.
CGO CMD	Command-line arguments of the Causality Group Owner.
CGO MD5	MD5 value of the CGO that initiated the alert.
CGO NAME	Name of the process that started the causality chain is based on Cortex XDR causality logic.
CGO SHA256	SHA256 value of the CGO that initiated the alert.
CGO SIGNATURE	Signing status of the CGO
CGO SIGNER	Name of the software publishing vendor that signed the file in the causality chain that led up to the alert. Note Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).
CLOUD IDENTITY TYPE	Classification is used to map the identity type that initiated an operation that triggered an alert. For example, Service, Application, and Temporary Credentials.
CLOUD IDENTITY SUB-TYPE	Specific classification of the identity initiated the operation. For example, for Identity Type: Temporary Credentials the subtype could be Assumed Role.
CLOUD OPERATION TYPE	Represents what has happened because of the identity operation. For example, Create, Delete, and Modify.
CLOUD PROJECT	Represents the cloud provider folders or projects. For example, AWS Accounts and Azure Subscriptions.
CLOUD PROVIDER	Name of the cloud provider where the alert occurred.
CLOUD REFERENCED RESOURCE	Represents the resources that are referenced in the alert log. In most cases, the referred resource will be where the operation was initiated on.
CLOUD RESOURCE TYPE	Classifications are used to map similar types of resources across different cloud providers. For example, EC2, Google Compute Engine, and Microsoft Compute are all mapped to Compute.
CLOUD RESOURCE SUB-TYPE	Specific classification is used to map the types of resources. For example, DISK, VPC, and Subnet are all mapped to Compute.
CONTAINS FEATURED HOST	Whether the alert includes a host name that has been flagged as a Featured Alert Field.
CONTAINS FEATURED USER	Whether the alert includes a user name that has been flagged as a Featured Alert Field.
CONTAINS FEATURED IP ADDRESS	Whether the alert includes an IP address name that has been flagged as a Featured Alert Field.
CID	Unique identifier of the causality instance generated by Cortex XDR .
DESCRIPTION	Text summary of the event including the alert source, alert name, severity, and file path.
DESTINATION ZONE NAME	Destination zone of the connection for firewall alerts.
DNS Query Name	Domain name is queried in the DNS request.
EMAIL RECIPIENT	Email recipient value of a firewall alerts triggered on the content of a malicious email.
EMAIL SENDER	Email sender value of a firewall alerts triggered on the content of a malicious email.
EMAIL SUBJECT	Email subject value of a firewall alerts triggered on the content of a malicious email.
EVENT TYPE	Type of event on which the alert was triggered.
EXCLUDED	Whether the alert is excluded by an exclusion configuration.
EXTERNAL ID	Alert ID as recorded in the detector from which this alert was sent.
FILE PATH	Path to the file on the endpoint, for alerts that are triggered on a file (the Event Type is File).
FILE MACRO SHA256	SHA256 hash value of a Microsoft Office file macro.
FILE MD5	MD5 hash value of the file.
FILE SHA256	SHA256 hash value of the file.
FW NAME	Name of firewall on which a firewall alert was raised.
FW RULE ID	Firewall rule ID that triggered the firewall alert.
FW RULE NAME	Firewall rule name that matches the network traffic that triggered the firewall alert.
FW SERIAL NUMBER	Serial number of the firewall that raised the firewall alert.
HOST	Hostname of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered. The hostname is generally available for XDR agent alerts or alerts that are stitched with EDR data. When the hostname is unknown, this field is blank.
HOST FQDN	Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the Windows endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.
HOST IP	IP address of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.
HOST IPv6	IPv6 address of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.
HOST MAC ADDRESS	MAC address of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.
HOST OS	Operating system of the endpoint or server on which this alert was triggered.
INCIDENT ID	ID of any incident that includes the alert.
INITIATED BY	Name of the process that initiated an activity such as a network connection or registry change.
INITIATOR MD5	MD5 value of the process which initiated the alert.
INITIATOR SHA256	SHA256 hash value of the initiator.
INITIATOR CMD	Command-line used to initiate the process including any arguments.
INITIATOR SIGNATURE	Signing status of the process that initiated the activity.
INITIATOR PATH	Path of the initiating process.
INITIATOR PID	Process ID (PID) of the initiating process.
INITIATOR SIGNER	Signer of the process that triggered the alert. Note Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).
INITIATOR TID	Thread ID (TID) of the initiating process.
IS PHISHING	Whether a firewall alert is classified as phishing.
LOCAL IP	IP address of the host that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on network activity (the Event Type is Network Connection).
LOCAL PORT	Port on the endpoint that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on network activity (the Event Type is Network Connection).
MAC ADDRESS	MAC address on which the alert was triggered.
MISC	Miscellaneous information about the alert.
MITRE ATT&CK TACTIC	Type of MITRE ATT&CK tactic on which the alert was triggered.
MITRE ATT&CK TECHNIQUE	Type of MITRE ATT&CK technique and sub‑technique on which the alert was triggered.
MODULE	For Cortex XDR agent alerts, this field identifies the protection module that triggered the alert.
NGFW VSYS NAME	Name of the virtual system for the Palo Alto Networks firewall that triggered an alert.
OS PARENT CREATED BY	Name of the parent operating system that created the alert.
OS PARENT CMD	Command line used by the parent operating system to initiate the process including any arguments.
OS PARENT SIGNATURE	Signing status of the operating system of the activity.
OS PARENT SIGNER	Parent operating system signer. Note Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).
OS PARENT SH256	Parent operating system SHA256 hash value.
OS PARENT ID	Parent operating system ID.
OS PARENT PID	OS parent process ID.
OS PARENT TID	OS parent thread ID.
OS PARENT USER NAME	Name of the user associated with the parent operating system.
PHONE NUMBER	Shows the phone number that triggered the alert. This is the number that sent a malicious URL/spam or was blocked.
PROCESS EXECUTION SIGNATURE	Signature status of the process that triggered the alert.
PROCESS EXECUTION SIGNER	Signer of the process that triggered the alert. Note Cortex XDR can display both the O (Organization) value and the CN (Common Name).
REGISTRY DATA	Registry data that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on registry modifications (the Event Type is Registry).
REGISTRY FULL KEY	Full registry key that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on registry modifications (the Event Type is Registry).
REMOTE HOST	Remote host name that triggered the alert, for alerts that are triggered on network activity (the Event Type is Network Connection).
REMOTE IP	Remote IP address of a network operation that triggered the alert.
REMOTE PORT	Remote port of a network operation that triggered the alert.
RESOLUTION STATUS	Status that was assigned to this alert when it was triggered (or modified). Right-click an alert to change the status. If you set the status to Resolved, select a resolution reason. Any update made to an alert impacts the associated incident. An incident with all its associated alerts marked as resolved is automatically set to Auto-Resolved. Cortex XDR continues to group alerts to an Auto-Resolved Incident for up to six hours. In the case where an alert is triggered during this duration, Cortex XDR re-opens the incident.
RULE ID	ID that matches the rule that triggered the alert.
SEVERITY	Severity that was assigned to this alert when it was triggered (or modified).
STARRED	Whether the alert is starred by starring configuration.
SOURCE ZONE NAME	Source zone name of the connection for firewall alerts.
TAGS	Displays one or more of the following categories, which is used to filter the results according to the selected tag: Asset Roles Data Sources Detector Tags Endpoint Groups / Endpoint Tags — Displays the tag family and the corresponding tags. If SBAC is enabled, the user can view and manage the alerts table according the user's scope settings. Note When viewing alerts as a scoped user when a tenant is set to permissive mode, the user can view the alert but not have access to entities outside their scope. When viewing alerts as a scoped user when a tenant is set to restrictive mode, the alert content is not visible. The user can send the alert ID to the administrator to add to the user scope so the user can view the alert.
TARGET FILE SHA256	SHA256 hash value of an external DLL file that triggered the alert.
TARGET PROCESS CMD	Command line of the process whose creation triggered the alert.
TARGET PROCESS NAME	Name of the process whose creation triggered the alert.
TARGET PROCESS SHA256	SHA256 value of the process whose creation triggered the alert.
TIMESTAMP	Date and time when the alert occurred in the source origin. For example, when the alert occurred in the XDR agent. Right-click to show rows 30 days prior or 30 days after the selected timestamp field value.
URL	URL destination address of the domain triggering the firewall alert.
USER NAME	Name of the user that initiated the behavior that triggered the alert. If the user is a domain user account, this field also identifies the domain. Any alert triggered based on network, authentication, or login events, displays the User Name in the follow standardized format in the Alerts and Incidents pages. <company domain><code><username>
XFF	X-Forwarded-For value from the HTTP header of the IP address connecting with a proxy.