Up
Previous Next

Sheriff CSM™

Microsoft Windows Firewall through NXLog

When you configure Microsoft Windows Firewall to send log data to Sheriff CSM, you can use the Microsoft Windows Firewall plugin to translate raw log data into normalized events for analysis. The table below provides some basic information for the plugin:

Plugin Information

Device	Details
Vendor	Microsoft
Device Type	Firewall
Connection Type	Syslog
Data Source Name	windows-fw-nxlog
Data Source ID	1918

Integrating Windows Firewall and NXLog

Before configuring NXLog in Sheriff CSM, you must first enable logging in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

Enable Logging in Windows Firewall

To enable logging in Windows Firewall

1. Open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

2. In the Actions panel, click Properties.

3. On the Domain Profile tab, click the Customize button in Logging.

4. In the new window, complete these steps:

   1. Keep the name as default.
   2. Increase the Size limit (KB) to 8192.
   3. Change both Log dropped packets and Log successful connections to Yes.

      

5. Click OK.

Configure NXLog on Windows

To send log data through NXLog to Sheriff CSM

1. If not done already, download nxlog.conf, and then place it in the conf directory of your NXLog installation. Depending on which version you use, the directory can be C:\Program Files (x86)\nxlog\conf for the 32-bit version or C:\Program Files\nxlog\conf for the 64-bit version.

   Note: This step overwrites the default nxlog.conf file. You may want to back up the original copy before placing the one provided by AT&T Cybersecurity.

2. Open the nxlog.conf file in a text editor.

3. Update the root path of your NXLog installation.

   1. Locate the following lines:

      #define ROOT C:\Program Files\nxlog
      #define ROOT C:\Program Files (x86)\nxlog

   2. Uncomment the path that matches the NXLog installation on your Windows machine.

4. Enter the Sheriff CSM Sensor (Deputy) IP address.

   1. Locate the following line:

      define OUTPUT_DESTINATION_ADDRESS <Sheriff-CSM-Sensor-IP>

   2. Replace <Sheriff-CSM-Sensor-IP> with the IP address of the Sheriff CSM All-in-One or Sheriff CSM Sensor that will receive the Windows events.

5. Uncomment the section between WINDOWS-FW-NXLOG and /WINDOWS-FW-NXLOG.

   Important: Only remove the first # symbol in each line when uncommenting the sections. The remaining # symbol indicates that the line is either a comment or optional.

6. In addition, uncomment the following lines, above the DHCP-NXLOG section:

   #<Extension json>
   # Module xm_json
   #</Extension>

7. Save the file.

8. Start or restart the NXLog service.

Plugin Enablement

For plugin enablement information, see Enable Plugins.

If enabling the plugin on assets, you will find it listed as Microsoft : Windows Firewall : NXLog.

Additional Resources and Troubleshooting

NXLog documentation on forwarding and storing logs

For troubleshooting, refer to the vendor documentation:

NXLog documentation on troubleshooting