Getting started with NetApp Autonomous Ransomware Protection (ARP)

Before you begin

ARP has been available since ONTAP 9.10.1. The ARP function is focused on detecting ransomware attacks for file workloads.
In the case of an attack, ARP automatically creates a snapshot and can forward this event via BlueXP or syslog to an external SIEM solution.
You also need to be aware that ARP is not the only layer of protection that you have in place in your ransomware strategy.
Smart snapshot policies , tamperproof snapshots, snapmirror/vault, multi-admin approval and role based access should also be part of your ransomware protection strategy.

ARP use three ways to detect ransomware attacks Entropy, file extension and File IOPS.

Before you begin, you should have an ONTAP system with current ONTAP patch level. During the last time, a few bugs were fixed. Enabling ARP requires a ONTAP System with a valid ONTAP ONE license.

About this article

This article provides a brief overview of how to enable ARP on NetApp volumes.
The second part covers event log forwarding to ann syslog destination.

Enabling ARP

There are two ways to enable ARP. The first way is GUI based, the second way is CLI command based.
Before ARP can be enabled, you must first initialise the learning mode.
The learning mode should run for at least 30 days.

 

To start the learning mode, you can use the following cli command:
security anti-ransomware volume dry-run -volume your_vol01 -vserver svm1
or using the task via the GUI:
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After the learning period (30 days), you can enable the ARP function.
During the learning phase, ARP uses machine learning to learn how the file system is typically accessed.
The things that ARP learns about the access behavior are stored in a workload.
This workload can be inspected for troubleshooting purpose.
ONTAP 9.16.1 changes the way ARP is enabled. With ONTAP 9.16.1, learning mode is deprecated, you simply enable ARP and ARP works with a pre-trained model.

Forwarding ARP events

The first step is to specify an event notification destination.​
event notification destination create -name sime -syslog fqdn

The event filter needs to be configured with some ARP rules.

event filter rule add -filter-name arp -type include -message-name callhome.arw.activity.seen -severity *
event filter rule add -filter-name arp -type include -message-name arw.volume.state -severity *
event filter rule add -filter-name arp -type include -message-name arw.vserver.state -severity *
event filter rule add -filter-name arp -type include -message-name arw.analytics.* -severity *

Last step is to attach the event filter to the forwarding destination

yourcluster::> event notification create -filter-name arp -destinations sime

yourcluster::> event notification show -filter-name *arp*
ID   Filter Name                     Destinations
---- ------------------------------  -----------------
4    arp                             your_siem

yourcluster::>

To check whether the configuration works as expected, you can use the following command:

event generate -message-name arw.volume.state -node node01 -values Test,Test,Test,Test,Test
and see if the filter doses what it should.
yourcluster::*> event notification history show -destination your_siem
Time                Node             Severity      Event
------------------- ---------------- ------------- ---------------------------
11/27/2023 17:25:09 node01
                                     NOTICE        arw.volume.state: Anti-ransomware state was changed to "Test" on volume "Test" (UUID: "Test") in Vserver "Test" (UUID: "Test").
11/27/2023 17:20:15 node01
                                     NOTICE        arw.volume.state: Anti-ransomware state was changed to "Test" on volume "Test" (UUID: "Test") in Vserver "Test" (UUID: "Test").
11/27/2023 17:13:23 node01
                                     NOTICE        arw.volume.state: Anti-ransomware state was changed to "Test" on volume "Test" (UUID: "Test") in Vserver "Test" (UUID: "Test").
11/27/2023 17:04:24 node01
                                     NOTICE        arw.volume.state: Anti-ransomware state was changed to "Test" on volume "Test" (UUID: "Test") in Vserver "Test" (UUID: "Test").
4 entries were displayed.

yourcluster::*>
Feel free and try out the NetApp lab "Protection and Recovery From Ransomware v4.2" .
 
Cheers ✌,
Eric