Individual skill

hunting-for-cobalt-strike-beacons

Detect Cobalt Strike beacon command-and-control traffic using default TLS certificate signatures (serial 8BB00EE), JA3/JA3S/JARM fingerprints, HTTP malleable C2 profile pattern matching, and beacon jitter/interval analysis, built with Zeek network logs, Suricata IDS rules, and Python PCAP analysis. Use when hunting for Cobalt Strike beacon callbacks in network traffic or building detection rules for this C2 framework.

skills/hunting-for-cobalt-strike-beacons/SKILL.md

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Last checked: Nov 9, 2026

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Repository stars (not skill ratings): 35,985
Repository last updated: Aug 31, 2026
License: Apache-2.0

Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.

ai-agents Repository topic
claude-code Repository topic
cybersecurity Repository topic
incident-response Repository topic
mitre-attack Repository topic
penetration-testing Repository topic
red-team Repository topic
security Repository topic
cloud-security Repository topic
malware-analysis Repository topic
cobalt-strike Declared skill tag
beacon Declared skill tag
threat-hunting Declared skill tag
c2 Declared skill tag
zeek Declared skill tag
suricata Declared skill tag
ja3 Declared skill tag
jarm Declared skill tag
network-forensics Declared skill tag
security Derived category

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LICENSEasset · 11,255 bytes
SKILL.mdcore · 2,969 bytes
references/api-reference.mddoc · 4,677 bytes
scripts/agent.pyruns · 8,333 bytes

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# Hunting for Cobalt Strike Beacons

## Overview

Cobalt Strike is the most prevalent command-and-control framework used by both red teams and threat actors. Beacon, its primary payload, communicates with team servers using configurable HTTP/HTTPS/DNS profiles that can mimic legitimate traffic. However, default configurations and behavioral patterns remain detectable through TLS certificate analysis (default serial 8BB00EE), JA3/JA3S fingerprinting, beacon interval jitter analysis, and HTTP malleable profile pattern matching. This skill covers building detection capabilities using Zeek network logs, Suricata IDS rules, and Python-based PCAP analysis to identify beacon callbacks in network traffic.


## When to Use

- When investigating security incidents that require hunting for cobalt strike beacons
- When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
- When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
- When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques