You can use signals through an integration with Tanium™ Trace for the continuous, real-time evaluation of process, network, registry, and file events on Windows endpoints. Signals implement a specific language that the Detect service ingests and validates for both language syntax and the currently supported terms and conditions.	Signals are available as a feed from Tanium, or you can author your own signals.
In addition to using the Tanium Signal feed of tested and validated signals, you might want to create your own custom signals, specific to your environment. Signals provide a mechanism for you to detect suspicious or interesting process behavior, by combining multiple search expressions. A narrow search scope helps you minimize false-positive alerts.
For more information about the signals provided by Tanium, see Connect to the Tanium Signals feed.
Signals use a specific language syntax to build search expressions for process-related events on the endpoint.
Like other intel, signals get validated when they are added to the Detect service to ensure proper structure. The signals are compiled, then sent and applied to the appropriate computer groups.
Unlike other types of intel, the Trace event recorder continuously inspects each process creation event in real time and starts up the Detect evaluation engine when a match occurs, rather than doing periodic scans. Each event gets evaluated against any signal definitions. Whenever a signal condition is matched, an alert is generated. Detect regularly polls the endpoints with a saved question to gather alerts. The alerts appear on the Alerts page in the Detect workbench.
Each object is a type of process event and has one or more properties that further narrow the scope of the event. The condition specifies how the object and property relate to the value provided. Not all conditions are supported with all object properties.
For full details about the supported objects, properties, and conditions, go to the Detect home page help , where you can access the Evaluation Engine documentation.
Use signals to detect activity that, while not malicious, is unwanted within a specific group of computers. For example, the use of dsquery.exe or dsget.exe to administer Active Directory could be an unwanted activity. If your normal process is to use Powershell scripts developed in-house, it could signify that an intruder is trying to make modifications. Or if firewall settings are inherited through GPO settings, the use of netsh.exe on an endpoint might need to be understood.
Use signals to ensure that some activity has happened. For example, receiving alerts from servers when a critical application has launched following a reboot might be a signal to consider. Alerting that the w3wp.exe process has launched after an IIS server has rebooted might be something a Web Content team would want to see.
Signals must have a narrow scope, specific targets, and a clear intended use.
After you create a signal, test the signal in a lab before using it in a production environment. Verify that the signal is applied to the correct endpoints and returns the results that you expect.
See Add signals for more information.
(Optional) If you want to evaluate a signal, you can run a quick scan for the signal and modify the signal as needed.
Apply the signal to a group configuration for a test computer group that has Detect tools installed.
If you cannot wait for the intel deployment interval, click Deploy Intel Now.
On one or more endpoints within the configured computer group, trigger the conditions of the signal.
Confirm that the alert has been received by the Detect workbench.
Iterate on this process until you are satisfied with the results.