Stellar Cyber 5.4.0s Release Notes

Software Release Date: January 28, 2025
 Release Note Updated: April 18, 2025

The Stellar Cyber 5.4.0s release brings the following exciting improvements to the Stellar Cyber Open XDR platform.

The release notes are organized into the following sections:

Highlights

  • Reporting and Insights: Stellar Cyber introduces a new reporting engine that enables you to create beautiful PDF reports out-of-the-box and a new scheduler that allows more granular control over report delivery.

  • Expanded Threat Intelligence and Indicators of Compromise (IoCs): Deepen your coverage with fresh support for file hashes, revealing even more insights into known malicious activities.

  • Unified Silent Mode: Rule Based Detections, machine learning (ML) Detections, and Third Party Integrations now share a consistent silent mode experience, letting you refine strategies without the alert noise.

  • Enriched Email and Cloud Observables: Gain a clearer picture of threat narratives with intuitive visualizations and improved email and cloud data correlation.

  • Smarter Domain Controller Correlation: Focus on real offenders rather than routine authentication events. Case correlation logic has been refined to ensure that domain controllers appear only when they're relevant.

  • Network-Based Windows Attack Detection: Strengthen your defense without using a Windows Server Sensor. SMB traffic analysis now uncovers suspicious behavior independently.

  • Location History Retention and Account Creation Alerts: Track unusual user movements and sudden account spikes to catch emerging risks before they escalate.

  • New Log Forwarding Use Cases: Enable lightweight log forwarding from workstation-class Windows operating systems to support small-footprint deployments using syslog forwarding on Windows Server Sensors.

  • Alert Filters for Tenant Groups: Create filters to exclude alerts and apply alert filters to one or more tenant groups in bulk from the root level or to multiple tenants in bulk from the root and partner levels.

  • System Action Center Alerts: Added support for sending individual System Action Center notifications for each matching event instead of consolidated summaries.

  • Connectors: Added the following new connectors: FortiEDR, Juniper Mist, WithSecure Elements, Abnormal Security Email Security, Versa Networks Concerto, AWS Inspector, Trend Micro Email Security, NetFoundry, Fortra Frontline, and Google Cloud Security Command Center.

Actions Required

  • When using correlations that rely on the time boundary feature, switch to the time range configuration on each query, which runs more efficiently.

  • To support processes introduced in 5.4.0 that let Stellar Cyber enable or disable features and fixes already included in the platform, ensure that the web browsers of all Stellar Cyber users can make HTTPS connections to the following domains:

    From Stellar Cyber users' web browsers

    • https://clientsdk-ld.stellarcyber.ai

    • https://clientstream-ld.stellarcyber.ai

    • https://events-ld.stellarcyber.ai

    Without access to these URLs, your Stellar Cyber Platform still functions, but features and fixes cannot be enabled or disabled, and Early Access Program features will not be available.

  • Update any configurations with field changes noted in the Behavior Changes section.

Behavior Changes

Changes that affect the way users interact with the product or interpret results are listed below.

  • The correlation logic that determines how domain controllers show up in cases has been refined. In cases where a domain controller is just doing routine authentication, it’s no longer highlighted as the center of the threat narrative. Instead, the focus is on the systems and accounts genuinely involved in suspicious activity. This results in fewer false leads, better grouping, and more accurate scoring.

  • When using the Palo Alto Networks Firewall parser, note that the threatid field was split into palo_alto_networks.threat_id and palo_alto_networks.threat_name.

  • The CyberArk PTA (CEF) parser now parses the Value and Old Value fields from msg and stores them in the vendor namespace.

  • When using the Zscaler - NSSWeblog (CEF) parser, note that the suser field was renamed to srcip_username, and invalid values for src and dstip are now stored in the vendor namespace.

  • The McAfee ePolicy Orchetrator parser now normalizes the Username field to user.name.

  • The Avanan (HTTP JSON) parser now normalizes the event.entity.entity_payload.internet_message_id field to email.message_id.

  • When parsing Incapsula SIEM Integration (CEF) logs, note that the rule_info field was relocated to the vendor namespace.

  • The Hewlett Packard UNIX parser redirects invalid srcip and dstip field values to a vendor-specific namespace instead of keeping them in the srcip and dstip fields.

  • The Created At filter in the Cases page now defaults to show cases from the last 24 hours. You can set a different range manually, if required.

  • Creating a Security Event Filter using a post to the connect/api/v1/security_event_filters public API endpoint now requires you to include a new tenants parameter, as described in the SecurityEventFilterFormData schema in the public API reference.

Deprecated Features

The following feature has been deprecated in this release.

  • The use of an extended time boundary in correlated queries was deprecated in 5.4.0 because it is no longer needed. It was replaced by time ranges for each correlated query.

Detection/ML

New Features

Improvements

Usability

New Features

Improvements

Stellar Cyber Platform

New Features

Improvements

Sensors

New Features

Improvements

Connectors

New Features

Improvements

Parsers

New Features

Improvements

Early Access Program

If you're interested in testing out new features ahead of general availability, consider joining the Early Access Program (EAP) by contacting your Stellar Cyber Customer Success representative and telling them which EAP feature you want to test. Once you've agreed to the EAP terms and signed up, the EAP feature is unlocked for you.

The purpose of this program is to boost performance and reliability through real-world customer insights, giving you a hands-on role in shaping a Stellar Cyber feature. In return, you’ll receive early access to upcoming releases and the chance to guide product development.

AI Investigator

The first EAP feature being spotlighted is AI Investigator. AI Investigator leverages generative AI to accelerate threat investigations through natural language queries, automated charts, and a streamlined investigation flow. Enrolling in EAP lets you experience these benefits first and provide direct feedback that influences the final feature. If this sounds exciting, reach out to your Customer Success representative to sign up and start exploring.

Operational Notes

  • Keep in mind that the global Status filters available at the left of most Stellar Cyber tables (All Open, New, In Progress, Ignored, and Closed) apply only to security events (alerts). They do not apply to cases. You can apply Status filters to cases, too, but only from the Cases interface itself. The names of the Status filters for cases are also slightly different from those available for alerts.

  • Lookup strings for hash values should not include the SHA= or MD5= prefix. Enter these strings using just the hash value itself.

Resolved Issues

Known Issues

  • Upgrades of Windows Server Sensors to the 5.4.2 release are only supported from 5.3.0 and 5.4.0. They are not supported from 5.2.0 and lower.

  • Importing security rules via the Import Custom Security Rules page might cause the upload process to hang without providing a status update. If this happens, refresh the browser.

  • A query might not produce consistent search results if the field is set for a time, the value includes milliseconds, and the operator is set as is or is not. Workaround: When you define a query with a time field and a value that includes milliseconds, it’s not recommended to use is or is not as the operator. For more consistent search results, use one of the following operators instead: greater than, greater than or equal to, less than, less than or equal to, or in range.

  • When searching the Asset Analytics tab for an IP address, make sure you set the Search Column to Friendly Name, IP, or IP History. Searches for IP addresses with the Search column set to its default value of All don't work correctly. This will be fixed in a later release.

  • The Cylance responder is unable to perform the Contain Host action due to a limitation in the Cylance REST API. All requests return a 500 Internal Server error response.

  • Stellar Cyber recommends that you do not use the same login credentials to configure Azure or Azure Active Directory connectors for multiple tenants in the same company.

  • Windows Server Sensor installation can trigger the installation of Microsoft Visual C++ on the host machine if it isn't installed already. If the installation of Visual C++ fails, the Windows Server Sensor might not be able to decode the token used to authorize and configure its installation, leaving it unable to register with stellarcyber.cloud. If this happens, use the following steps to proceed:

    1. Update and restart the host Windows machine to repair the Microsoft Visual C++ installation.

    2. Either reinstall the Windows Server Sensor or use the set token command in the Sensor CLI to authorize and configure the existing installation.

  • The Log Forwarder only collects statistics for up to 100 different log source IP addresses per Log Forwarder worker. If the total number of log source IP addresses exceeds 100, statistics for the additional log source IP addresses are aggregated into the catch-all IP address of 0.0.0.0.

  • When multiple traffic filters are defined for a tenant with the same combination of IP address, port, protocol, and layer 7 rules, the filter might fail to take effect. If this happens, review the defined traffic filters and make sure there are no duplicate definitions.

  • If you change the network interface configuration of a sensor VM after deployment, the eth0 interface might be remapped to a new interface. If this happens, the management network is disconnected. Contact Stellar Cyber Customer Success for assistance.

  • The Sensor content type for the Cybereason connector requires the System Admin role and Sensor Admin L1 role (if your Cybereason environment uses sensor grouping) to collect.

  • Due to an ongoing issue with the Cybereason Query Sensors API, the Cybereason connector might not always be able to retrieve host IP addresses, resulting in missing host information in alerts and incomplete case correlation.

  • When a new tenant is onboarded, the rare-type alerts (anomaly_tag:rare) triggered from Private/Public to Private/Public Exploit Anomaly, Scanner Reputation Anomaly, External / Internal Non-Standard Port Anomaly, Carbon Black:XDR Anomaly, and CylanceOPTICS:XDR Anomaly may have an unusually large days_silent and a higher than usual fidelity. This issue will be addressed in a future release.

  • If you use a Cynet connector to perform a Contain Host or Shutdown Host on a host that is already disabled, shutdown, or otherwise not reachable, Cynet returns a status that the request was successful which is reported in the Stellar Cyber UI. If you are not certain whether an action was successful, you may verify it in the Cynet dashboard.

  • Operators are enabled in pick list menus when they are supported with the selected field or rule. For this reason, use the menu-based queries rather than the Search keyword field with these operators. Examples include contains, does not contain, and is operators. Additional fields/rule support will be added in the future.

  • Log Forwarder only collects statistics for limited different log source IP addresses per Log Forwarder worker. If the total number of log source IP addresses exceeds the limit, the additional log source IP address statistics will be aggregated into a catch-all IP address of 0.0.0.0.

    In releases prior to 5.1.1, the limit had been 100 sensors, but it was increased to 200 sensors with more than 8 GB of memory in the 5.1.1 release.

  • When a modular sensor is configured as a Log Forwarder-only sensor (Network Traffic and other features are not enabled), the Log Forwarder might periodically restart if there isn't enough sensor memory. Stellar Cyber recommends that the sensor memory (in GB) be at least 1.5 times the CPU core number. For example, if the sensor has a total of 8 cores, the sensor should have at least 8 * 1.5 = 12 GB of memory.

  • A modular sensor upgrade will fail when the associated modular sensor profile has the IDS or Sandbox features enabled and the corresponding feature license is not assigned to the sensor. Workaround: Authorize the sensor with an IDS and Sandbox license, or in the modular sensor profile, disable the IDS and the Sandbox features and try to upgrade again.

  • When multiple traffic filters in different tenants are defined with the same combination of IP, port, protocol, and layer 7 rules, the sensor only takes the filter belonging to the same tenant with the sensor and ignores the others. Administrators should review the defined traffic filters and avoid creating duplicate definitions.

  • Files might not be assembled by Security Data Sensors for traffic mirrored from physical interfaces on Cisco Nexus 9K models. As a workaround, configure VLAN mirroring on the Cisco switch.

  • If you change the network interface configuration of a sensor VM after deployment, the eth0 interface might be remapped to a new interface. If this happens, the management network becomes disconnected. Contact Customer Success for assistance.

  • If you configure a sensor aggregator using its hostname instead of its IP address, you can not see the aggregator in the Sensor List. This does not affect the sensor's ability to communicate with the DP through the aggregator.

  • Deleting Elasticsearch data from the Root Tenant in the System | Data Management | Advanced tab deletes data from sub-tenants as well.