Back to All Scenarios
PASSEDinfrastructure / rmm_false_alarm_storm
Remote Monitoring False Alarm Storm
The RMM platform generates a false alarm storm after a monitoring agent update pushes incorrect threshold values. 2,000+ alerts fire simultaneously across all managed clients, overwhelming the NOC and masking real issues.
Pattern
SNMP_TRAP_ERROR
Severity
CRITICAL
Confidence
85%
Remediation
Auto-Heal
Test Results
| Metric | Expected | Actual | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pattern Recognition | SNMP_TRAP_ERROR | SNMP_TRAP_ERROR | |
| Severity Assessment | CRITICAL | CRITICAL | |
| Incident Correlation | Yes | 16 linked | |
| Cascade Escalation | N/A | No | |
| Remediation | — | Auto-Heal — Corax resolves autonomously |
Scenario Conditions
RMM agent update v4.12.3 deployed to 500 endpoints. CPU threshold incorrectly set to 5% (should be 95%). 2,000+ CPU alerts generated in 10 minutes. NOC team overwhelmed. 3 real critical alerts buried in noise. Ticketing system queued 2,000 auto-generated tickets.
Injected Error Messages (2)
RMM false alarm storm — snmp trap flood from 500 managed endpoints, agent update v4.12.3 set incorrect CPU threshold to 5%, 2,000+ snmp trap alerts generated in 10 minutes, NOC dashboard unusable due to alert volume, real critical alerts buried in false positives
NOC alert system overwhelmed — snmp trap processing queue backed up with 2,000+ false CPU alerts, ticketing system auto-generated 2,000 tickets, 3 legitimate critical alerts (ransomware, disk failure, VPN down) masked by false alarm storm, snmp trap rate: 200/minute
Neural Engine Root Cause Analysis
The RMM platform is experiencing a cascading failure caused by a defective agent update (v4.12.3) that set CPU alert thresholds to an inappropriately low 5% across 500 managed endpoints. This configuration error triggered a massive SNMP trap flood (2,000+ alerts in 10 minutes), overwhelming the NOC dashboard and making the RMM platform operationally unusable. The high confidence pattern match and 9 correlated incidents confirm this is a widespread configuration-induced alert storm rather than actual infrastructure failure.
Remediation Plan
1. Immediately disable SNMP trap processing or implement rate limiting to stop the alert flood. 2. Push emergency configuration update to all affected endpoints to raise CPU threshold from 5% to appropriate level (typically 80-90%). 3. Clear/acknowledge all false positive alerts from the past 10 minutes. 4. Verify RMM dashboard functionality is restored. 5. Implement agent update rollback procedures and testing protocols to prevent similar issues.
Tested: 2026-03-30Monitors: 2 | Incidents: 2Test ID: cmnck3bgq06ezobqe996t8839