Vault automation API

The Automation API allows security operations teams to develop detailed and precise automation strategies. Playbooks can serve many purposes, ranging from automating minimal investigative tasks that can speed up analysis to large-scale responses to a security breach. The following APIs are supported to leverage the capabilities of vault automation using playbooks.

Vault background

The Vault is used to store container attachments, also known as artifacts. Users can access the vault using the vault playbook API, described here, or by directly uploading attachments to a container. The vault accepts files of all types and sizes. Vault files are stored on your drive under PHANTOM_HOME/vault/. Files are renamed using sha1 hashes and are saved to the database.

Vault files are duplicated to all SOAR instances in a clustered environment. When a container is deleted, all container attachments are removed and all vault files associated with the attachments are deleted from your PHANTOM_HOME/vault/ directory. In a warm standby situation, the vault directory is synced from the primary instance to the warm backup through Rsync. See Rsync in the Administer manual. To access the vault through the visual playbook editor, use custom code. For details on custom code, see Add custom code to your playbook with the code block in the Build Playbooks with the Playbook Editor manual.

vault_add

Use the vault_add API to attach a file to a container by adding it to the vault. This API returns a success flag, any response message, and the vault ID of the vault file.

The vault_add API is supported from within a custom function.

phantom.vault_add(container=None, file_location=None, file_name=None, metadata=None, trace=False)

Parameter	Required?	Type	Description
container	Optional	Integer or dictionary	The container to act on. This parameter can either be a numerical ID or a container object. If no container is provided, the currently running container is used.
file_location	Required	String	This parameter is the location of the file on the file system. Write this file to <$PHANTOM_HOME>/vault/tmp directory before calling this API. Temporary files are automatically removed after the file is added to the vault.
file_name	Optional	String	A custom file name. This parameter shows up as the file name in the container's vault files list.
metadata	Optional	Dictionary	Metadata about the file. Currently the only user-supplied attribute that is used is "contains", which specifies what kind of information is available. For example, the metadata={"contains":["pe file"]} syntax tells the system the file is a Windows PE file, which enables actions such as "detonate file".
trace	Optional	Boolean	Trace is a flag related to the level of logging. If trace is on (True), more logging is enabled. When set to True, more detailed output is displayed in debug output.

Create a file and add it to the vault

To create a file under /opt/phantom/vault/tmp, follow these steps:

1. SSH into your instance.
2. Navigate to the vault tmp directory by running cd /opt/phantom/vault/tmp.
3. Create a file that you want to add to the vault. For example, create touch myfile.

Once you have created a file, you can add it to the vault from the playbook using the following example code snippet.

phantom.vault_add() API.

import phantom.rules as phantom
import json


def on_start(container):

    return

def on_finish(container, summary):

    phantom.debug('phantom.vault_add start')

    success, message, vault_id = phantom.vault_add(
        file_location="<$PHANTOM_HOME>/vault/tmp/myfile",   # note: this file must exist on the system for this operation to succeed
        file_name="notepad.exe",
        metadata={"contains": ["PE File"]}
    )

    phantom.debug(
        'phantom.vault_add results: success: {}, message: {}, vault_id: {}'\
        .format(success, message, vault_id)
    )

    return

vault_delete

Use the vault_delete API to remove a file from the vault. This API returns a tuple of a success flag, any response message, and the list of deleted file names.

The vault_delete API is supported from within a custom function.

phantom.vault_delete(vault_id=None, file_name=None, container_id=None, remove_all=False, trace=False)

Parameter	Required?	Type	Description
vault_id	Optional, unless the file_name is not provided	String	The alphanumeric file hash of the vault file, such as 41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534.
file_name	Optional, unless the vault_id is not provided.	String	Name of the file to delete.
container_id	Optional	Integer	Container ID to query vault items for. To get the current container ID value from an app that is executing an action, use the return value of BaseConnector::get_container_id().
remove_all	Optional	Boolean	If multiple items are found with the same identifier, set this parameter to True to remove all. If multiple files are found and this parameter is set to False, an error is returned.
trace	Optional	Boolean	Trace is a flag related to the level of logging. If trace is on (True), more logging is enabled. When set to True, more detailed output is displayed in debug output.

For this API, you need to give the automation user permissions to delete containers.

This sample uses the vault_delete() API.

import phantom.rules as phantom

def on_start(container):

    phantom.debug('phantom.vault_delete start')

    success, message, deleted_files = phantom.vault_delete(
        vault_id='41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534',
        remove_all=False
    )

    phantom.debug(
        'phantom.vault_delete results: success: {}, message: {}, deleted_files: {}'\
        .format(success, message, deleted_files)
    )

    return

vault_info

The vault_info API returns a tuple of a success flag, any response messages, and information for all vault items that match either of the input parameters. If neither of the parameters are specified, an empty list is returned.

The vault_info API is supported from within a custom function.

phantom.vault_info(vault_id=None, file_name=None, container_id=None, trace=False)

Parameter	Required?	Type	Description
vault_id	Optional	String	The alphanumeric file hash of the vault file, such as 41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534.
file_name	Optional	String	The file name of the vault file.
container_id	Optional	Integer	Container ID to query vault items for. To get the current container_id value from an app that is executing an action, use the return value of BaseConnector::get_container_id().
trace	Optional	Boolean	Trace is a flag related to the level of logging. If trace is on (True), more logging is enabled. When set to True, more detailed output is displayed in debug output.

Example request

This sample uses the phantom.vault_info() API.

import phantom.rules as phantom

def on_start(container):

    phantom.debug('phantom.vault_info start')

    success, message, info = phantom.vault_info(
        vault_id='41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534',
        container_id=1
    )

    phantom.debug(
        'phantom.vault_info results: success: {}, message: {}, info: {}'\
        .format(success, message, info)
    )

    return

Example response

The following is an example of what the API returns within the third tuple member.

[
    {
        "container": "Incident # 1",
        "name": "ping.exe",
        "aka": [
            "ping.exe"
        ],
        "metadata": {
            "contains": [
                "pe file"
            ],
            "sha256": "14262982a64551fde126339b22b993b6e4aed520e53dd882e67d887b6b66f942",
            "sha1": "41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534"
        },
        "id": 3,
        "container_id": 1,
        "create_time": "37 minutes ago",
        "vault_id": "41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534",
        "user": "",
        "vault_document": 3,
        "hash": "41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534",
        "path": "/opt/phantom/vault/41/c4/41c4e1e9abe08b218f5ea60d8ae41a5f523e7534",
        "size": 16896
    },
....
....
]