Understanding ATA health alerts

Applies to: Advanced Threat Analytics version 1.9

The ATA Health Center lets you know when there's a problem with the ATA deployment, by raising a health alert. This article describes all the health alerts for each component, listing the cause and the steps needed to resolve the problem.

ATA Center Issues

Center running out of disk space

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The free space on the ATA Center machine drive that is used for storing the ATA database is getting low. This means that the hard drive has less than 200 GB of free space or that there is less than 20% free space, whichever is smaller. When ATA recognizes that the drive is running low on space, it starts to delete old data from the database. If it cannot delete old data because it still needs the data for the detection engine, you receive this alert. When you receive this alert, ATA stops keeping track of new activities. Increase the drive size or free up space from that drive. High

Failure sending mail

Alert Description Resolution Severity
ATA Failed to send an email notification to the specified mail server. No email messages are sent from ATA. Verify the SMTP server configuration. Low

Center overloaded

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Center is not able to handle the amount of data being transferred from the ATA Gateways. The ATA Center stops analyzing new network traffic and events. This means that the accuracy of the detections and profiles is reduced while this health alert is active. Make sure that you provided enough resources for the ATA Center. For more details on how to properly plan for ATA Center capacity, see ATA capacity planning. Investigate the performance of the ATA Center using Troubleshooting ATA using the performance counters. High

Failure connecting to the SIEM server using Syslog

Alert Description Resolution Severity
ATA failed to send events to the specified SIEM. This means the ATA Center cannot send suspicious activities and health alerts to your SIEM. Make sure that your Syslog server settings are configured correctly. Low

Center certificate is about to expire

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Center certificate will expire in less than 3 weeks. After the certificate expires: Connectivity from ATA Gateways to ATA Center will fail. The ATA Center process will crash and all ATA functionality will stops. Replace the ATA Center certificate Medium

ATA Center certificate expired

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Center certificate expired. After the certificate expires: Connectivity from the ATA Gateways to the ATA Center fails. The ATA Center process crashes and all ATA functionality stops. Redeploy the ATA Center High

ATA Gateway issues

Read-only user password to expire shortly

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The read-only user password, used to perform resolution of entities against Active Directory, is about to expire in less than 30 days. If the password for this user expires, all the ATA Gateways stop running and no new data is collected. Change the domain connectivity password and then update the password in the ATA Console. Medium

Read-only user password expired

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The read-only user password, used to get directory data, expired. All the ATA Gateways stop running (or will stop running soon) and no new data is collected. Change the domain connectivity password and then update the password in the ATA Console. High

Gateway certificate about to expire

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Gateway certificate will expire in less than 3 weeks. Connectivity from the specific ATA Gateway to the ATA Center fails. No data from that ATA Gateway is sent. The ATA Gateway certificate should have been renewed automatically. Read the ATA Gateway and ATA Center logs to understand why that Certificate did not renew automatically. Medium

Gateway certificate expired

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Gateway certificate expired. There is no connectivity from this ATA Gateway to the ATA Center. No data from that ATA Gateway is sent. Uninstall and reinstall the ATA Gateway. High

Domain synchronizer not assigned

Alert Description Resolution Severity
No domain synchronizer is assigned to any ATA Gateway. This may happen if there is no ATA Gateway configured as domain synchronizer candidate. When the domain is not synchronized, changes to entities might cause entity information in ATA to become out of date or missing but does not affect any detection. Make sure that at least one ATA Gateway is set as a Domain synchronizer. Low

All/Some of the capture network adapters on a Gateway are not available

Alert Description Resolution Severity
All/Some of the selected capture network adapters on the ATA Gateway are disabled or disconnected. Network traffic for some/all of the domain controllers is no longer captured by the ATA Gateway. This impacts the ability to detect suspicious activities, related to those domain controllers. Make sure these selected capture network adapters on the ATA Gateway are enabled and connected. Medium

Some domain controllers are unreachable by a Gateway

Alert Description Resolution Severity
An ATA Gateway has limited functionality due to connectivity issues to some of the configured domain controllers. Pass the Hash detection might be less accurate when some domain controllers can't be queried by the ATA Gateway. Make sure the domain controllers are up and running and that this ATA Gateway can open LDAP connections to them. Medium

All domain controllers are unreachable by a Gateway

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Gateway is currently offline due to connectivity issues to all the configured domain controllers. This impacts ATA's ability to detect suspicious activities related to domain controllers monitored by this ATA Gateway. Make sure the domain controllers are up and running and that this ATA Gateway can open LDAP connections to them. Medium

Gateway stopped communicating

Alert Description Resolution Severity
There has been no communication from the ATA Gateway. The default time span for this alert is 5 minutes. Network traffic is no longer captured by the network adapter on the ATA Gateway. This impacts ATA's ability to detect suspicious activities, since network traffic will not be able to reach the ATA Center. Check that the port used for the communication between the ATA Gateway and ATA Center service is not blocked by any routers or firewalls. Medium

No traffic received from domain controller

Alert Description Resolution Severity
No traffic was received from the domain controller via this ATA Gateway. This might indicate that port mirroring from the domain controllers to the ATA Gateway is not configured yet or not working. Verify that port mirroring is configured properly on your network devices.

On the ATA Gateway capture NIC, disable these features in Advanced Settings:

Receive Segment Coalescing (IPv4)

Receive Segment Coalescing (IPv6)
Medium

Some forwarded events are not being analyzed

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Gateway is receiving more events than it can process. Some forwarded events are not being analyzed, which can impact the ability to detect suspicious activities originating from domain controllers being monitored by this ATA Gateway. Verify that only required events are forwarded to the ATA Gateway or try to forward some of the events to another ATA Gateway. Medium

Some network traffic is not being analyzed

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Gateway is receiving more network traffic than it can process. Some network traffic is not being analyzed, which can impact the ability to detect suspicious activities originating from domain controllers being monitored by this ATA Gateway. Consider adding additional processors and memory as required. If this is a standalone ATA Gateway, reduce the number of domain controllers being monitored.

This can also happen if you are using domain controllers on VMware virtual machines. To avoid these alerts, you can check that the following settings are set to 0 or Disabled in the virtual machine:

- TsoEnable

- LargeSendOffload(IPv4)

- IPv4 TSO Offload

Also, consider disabling IPv4 Giant TSO Offload. For more information, consult your VMware documentation.
Medium

Gateway version outdated

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Center is newer than the version installed on the ATA Gateway. This is causing the ATA Gateway to stop functioning as expected. This can impact the ability to detect suspicious activities originating from domain controllers being monitored by this ATA Gateway. Update the ATA Gateway to the latest version automatically by enabling automatic update in the ATA Console or by downloading the latest ATA Gateway package available in the ATA Console. High

Gateway service failed to start

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The ATA Gateway service failed to start for at least 30 minutes. This can impact the ability to detect suspicious activities originating from domain controllers being monitored by this ATA Gateway. Monitor ATA Gateway logs to understand the root cause for ATA Gateway service failure. High

Lightweight Gateway

Lightweight Gateway reached a memory resource limit

Alert Description Resolution Severity
The Lightweight ATA Gateway stopped itself and will restart automatically to protect the domain controller from a low memory condition. The Lightweight ATA Gateway enforces memory limitations upon itself to prevent the domain controller from experiencing resource limitations. This happens when memory usage on the domain controller is high. Data from this domain controller is only partly monitored. Increase the amount of memory (RAM) on the domain controller or add more domain controllers in this site to better distribute the load of this domain controller. Medium

See Also