Trusted activity
Overview
Use the Data Preferences settings for Trusted activity to define domains, URLs, Slack workspaces, cloud accounts, and Git repositories you trust.
Adding trusted activity prevents file activity in these locations from appearing on dashboards, user profiles, and alerts.
Trusted file activity is still captured and searchable in Forensic Search.
Considerations
To use this functionality, your role must have permissions to view and modify data preferences.
How it works
- File events are considered trusted when an entry in your list of trusted activity matches file event metadata associated with the event. Metadata evaluated for trust includes: browser tab titles, URLs, Git URIs, account names, usernames, and email addresses.
- If there is more than one domain associated with an event, all domains must be included in your list of trusted domains for the event to be trusted. If any domain associated with event is not in your list of trusted domains, the event is not trusted.
- Trusted file activity is excluded from:
- Data on the Risk Exposure dashboard
- Alerts
- Contributing to risk severity scores (unless identified as a source with high-value data)
- File event counts for Watchlists and User Profiles
- Forensic Search results that include the Trusted Activity filter with the value Exclude
Configure trusted activity
To access trusted activity settings:
- Sign in to the Code42 console.
- Navigate to Administration > Environment > Data Preferences.
- Select the Trusted activity tab.
Item | Description | |
---|---|---|
a | View trust suggestions | Click to view domains that frequently generate untrusted events, with the option to add the domain to trusted activity. See Trust suggestions below for details. |
b | Add trusted activity |
Click to add trusted activity and select a type:
Domain Trusts a wide variety of activity across an entire domain, including files uploaded via a web browser, sent from cloud sync apps installed on user devices, uploaded via Git push, and shared via cloud or email services monitored by Incydr. See Domain below for complete details.
Specific URL path Trusts browser uploads to only part of a domain. For example, adding the URL path github.com/company trusts uploads only to the "company" repository and not to all of github.com. See Specific URL path below for complete details.
Slack workspace Trusts files uploaded in a specific Slack workspace. See Slack workspace below for complete details.
Account name
Git repository URI Trusts pushes to specific repositories via Git. See Git repository URI below for complete details. |
c | Filter | Filter the list of entries by what the activity applies to. |
b | Trusted activity | The location of activity to be trusted. |
c | Applies to |
Indicates if the entry applies to a Domain, Specific URL path, Slack workspace, Account name, or Git repository URI. |
d | Description | An optional field to provide additional context or details. |
e | Last modified |
Indicates the time this entry was last modified and the user who made the change. File activity is trusted starting the date it is added to this list. Previous file activity is considered untrusted.
To see what changed, review the Audit Log and filter for Domain changed, Slack Workspace changed, URL changed, or Git repository changed events. |
f | Edit | Click to edit the trusted activity value and/or the description. |
g | Actions | Click to delete this entry. |
Trust suggestions
Review domains that frequently generate untrusted events and quickly add them as trusted activity. Adding these domains as trusted activity removes file activity in these locations from dashboards, user profiles, and alerts. The list of suggestions updates regularly, based on activity in your environment.
For each suggestion, click Add to trusted activity or Decline and remove from list
.
Domain
Adding trusted activity for a domain gives you the option to trust a wide variety of activity across the domain, including files uploaded via a web browser, sent from cloud sync apps installed on user devices, uploaded via Git push, and shared via cloud or email services monitored by Incydr.
If your organization has established processes for users to report unethical behavior, harassment, discrimination, or other types of misconduct, consider adding the associated URLs to your list of trusted domains. For example, adding
report-misconduct.example.com
would prevent file activity on that domain from appearing on Code42 dashboards, user profiles, and alerts.Watch the video below for an overview of how to define a trusted domain. For more videos, visit the Code42 University.
- Do not include
https://
. - Including
www
is optional. Thewww
prefix is ignored when evaluating trust. - Only the domain is evaluated for trust. The protocol (https://) and characters after the top-level domain (TLD) are ignored. For example, for file activity on
https://subdomain.corp.example.com/pages
, onlysubdomain.corp.example.com
is evaluated for trust. - For email activity, a value of
example.com
trusts activity from all users with email addresses on theexample.com
domain. Trusting specific email addresses is not supported. - Optionally, use the asterisk (*) character as a wildcard for partial domain names. For example, enter
*.example.com
to trust all subdomains ofexample.com
. See more guidance and warnings about wildcards below. - Review the Recommendations and Examples tabs on the add/edit screen for additional guidance.
Trusted scope
The Trusted scope settings enable you to define more specific criteria for which activity on a domain is trusted. Select one or more options:
- Files uploaded to this domain via a web browser: Activity is trusted if the domain is included in the browser URL or tab title.
- Files synced to cloud storage by desktop apps: Activity is trusted if the username signed in to the cloud sync app is on the domain. Click Edit to adjust which specific apps are trusted.
- Files shared from a cloud storage service monitored by Incydr: Activity is trusted if the user it's shared with is on this domain. Click Edit to define which cloud storage services are trusted.
- Files shared from an email service monitored by Incydr: Activity is trusted if the email recipient is on the domain. Click Edit to choose which email services are trusted.
- Files uploaded via Git push: Activity is trusted for Git push events to this domain.
Clicking the Edit link enables you to better identify risk in unmonitored locations. For example, if your company's only approved cloud storage solution is OneDrive, deselect Box and iCloud to define that activity as untrusted, even if the email address signed in to the account is on your domain.
Identify sources with high-value data
Available for domains, URL paths, Slack workspaces, and Account names
The Is this also a high value source of company information setting enables you to define if files acquired from this trusted location are a potential risk if they are exfiltrated later.
- Yes: Events for files acquired from this location and later sent to an untrusted destination have a risk score and source risk indicator applied. This enables you to trust uploads to a destination, but still apply risk to files downloaded from that destination and later moved to unmonitored or untrusted locations.
- No: Events for files acquired from this location and later sent to an untrusted destination are not identified as a risk.
Wildcards
Using a wildcard character may lead to unintentionally trusting unknown or malicious domains.
A trusted domain value of example*
trusts not only example.com
, but also any domain starting with example
, such as example.fake.com
, examplenotyourrealdomain.com
, and example.info
.
To trust both a parent domain and all subdomains, do not use an overly inclusive wildcard value, such as *example.com
. Instead, add these two values to minimize risk:
example.com
*.example.com
Since the first entry does not include a wildcard, it only trusts activity that matches the example.com
domain exactly. In the second entry, including a period (.) after the wildcard ensures only subdomains of your legitimate domain are trusted.
Trusted domain examples
The table below provides examples of whether file activity is trusted based on the combination of the trusted domain entry and where the file activity occurred.
- Yes = Activity on this domain is trusted for the supplied trusted domain entry
- No = Activity on this domain is not trusted for the supplied trusted domain entry
Trusted domain entry | |||||
<<< More secure Less secure >>> |
Activity on: | example.com | *.example.com | example | *example.com | example* | *example* |
www.example.com | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
https://subdomain.example.com | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
www.not-example.com | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
www.example.fake.com | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
first.last@example.com | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Specific URL path
Specific URL path entries trust activity for only part of a domain. For example, adding the URL path github.com/company trusts uploads only to the "company" repository and not to all of github.com.
- The combination of domain and path define trusted activity.
- All sub-directories of a path are also trusted. For example, an entry of github.com/company also trusts uploads to github.com/company/repository.
- The path portion of the URL can contain wildcards (*), but the domain cannot include wildcards.
- Do not include the protocol or query parameters. They are ignored when evaluating trust.
Watch the video below for an overview of how to define a trusted specific URL path. For more videos, visit the Code42 University.
Slack workspace
Trusting only specific Slack workspaces enables you to better identify risk in external Slack workspaces you don't control. For example, adding your corporate Slack workspace trusts file activity only within that workspace. Files shared in other workspaces are not trusted.
- Only enter the workspace name (for example, "Acme Co."). Do not enter the workspace URL.
- Wildcards are not supported in workspace names. If you include the
*
character, it is evaluated as part of the workspace name.
Watch the video below for an overview of how to define a trusted Slack workspace. For more videos, visit the Code42 University.
Account name
OneDrive and Dropbox only
Add your corporate cloud account name to trust file activity only within that account. This helps you better identify risk in personal accounts you don't control.
To trust a OneDrive account:
- On a user device, find the OneDrive sync folder for the corporate account you trust. For help locating this folder, visit Microsoft Support.
- In the Code42 console:
- From the list of cloud services to trust, select OneDrive.
- Enter the complete folder name in the Account name field. For example, OneDrive - Acme Co.
- Click Save.
To trust a Dropbox account:
- Sign in to dropbox.com with your administrator credentials.
- Select Admin console > Settings > Team profile. Note the Display name.
- In the Code42 console:
- From the list of cloud services to trust, select Dropbox.
- In the Account name field, enter the Display name plus the word "Dropbox." For example, if your Display name is "Acme Co," enter "Acme Co Dropbox".
- Click Save.
- For OneDrive, trust is only evaluated for OneDrive for Business accounts. Personal accounts cannot be trusted.
- For OneDrive, the sync folder name on user devices is determined by the name in your Microsoft console at the time the sync folder was created. Therefore, if your Microsoft account name has ever changed, you may have devices with different sync folder names. Add a separate trusted activity entry for each unique sync folder name in your environment.
- Wildcards are not supported in account names. If you include the
*
character, it is evaluated as part of the account name. - Incydr Professional, Enterprise, Horizon, and Gov F2 require Code42 agent version 1.5.0 or later for OneDrive and version 1.6.0 or later for Dropbox.
- Incydr Basic, Advanced, and Gov F1 require Code42 agent version 10.3.0 or later.
Git repository URI
Incydr Professional, Enterprise, Horizon, and Gov F2 only
Add a Git repository URI to trust Git pushes to this location.
- All sub-directories of the repository are also trusted.
- The URI scheme, user, and the trailing “.git” are ignored. For example:
- To trust all repositories in your company account at
ssh://git@example.com:account/
, enterexample.com:account/
- To trust a specific repository at
ssh://git@example.com:account/repository.git
, enterexample.com:account/repository
- To trust all repositories in your company account at
- To trust browser uploads to this location, you must also add a Specific URL path entry.
Trusted activity recommendations for source code repositories
How you configure trust for Git activity varies based on your source control application and repository locations.
- To trust Git activity for all repositories on a domain, use the Domain trusted activity type and select the trusted scope Files uploaded via Git push. You do not need to specify individual URI values. The Domain entry applies trust to both Git browser uploads and Git push activity.
- To trust only some locations on a domain, you must add two trusted activity types:
- A Specific URL path entry to trust browser uploads
- A Git repository URI entry to trust Git push activity
- Github: Add trusted activity entries for both Specific URL path and Git repository URI.
- Gitlab: Add a single Domain trusted activity entry. If the domain is already on your list of trusted activity, click the edit icon and then select Files uploaded via Git push in the list of Trusted scope options.
- Azure DevOps: Add trusted activity entries for both Specific URL path and Git repository URI.
- BitBucket (cloud): Add trusted activity entries for both Specific URL path and Git repository URI based on your workspace name.
- BitBucket (on-prem): Add a single Domain trusted activity entry. If the domain is already on your list of trusted activity, click the edit icon and then select Files uploaded via Git push in the list of Trusted scope options.