Suspicious Azure VM Run Command Execution (via azureactivity)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
azure
Service
azureactivity
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-11-04
Updated
2026-11-04

ATT&CK techniques

Execution
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects Azure Run Command operations that execute scripts directly on virtual machines through the control plane. The cloud persistence IR guide flags Run Command as a way for attackers to run code and re-establish access on hosts. Control-plane command execution from an unexpected identity warrants review.

Related detections6 linkedT1651 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Compute Instance Metadata Modification in GCP
Suspicious VM Run Command Execution in Azure
Suspicious Lambda Function Creation Across Regions in AWS Extortion Operation
Suspicious SSH Key Push to EC2 via EC2 Instance Connect
Suspicious Remote Command Execution to EC2 Instances via AWS SSM
Suspicious Google Cloud Function Create or Update Triggering Build
Suspicious Azure VM Run Command Execution (via azureactivity)
Pivot detection · T1651 · 6 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.