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VMware ESXi - Dormant VM started

Description

'Detects when dormant VM was started.'
Rule type
Scheduled
Version
1.0.3
Query frequency
1h
Query period
14d
Trigger
gt 0

Declared MITRE coverage

Declared sources

Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.

Connectors

KQL query

Original query, unchanged.

let vm_p_off =
VMwareESXi
| where TimeGenerated > ago(14d)
| where SyslogMessage has ('VmPoweredOffEvent')
| extend DstHostname = extract(@'\[\d+\]\s+\[(.*?)\s+on', 1, SyslogMessage)
| summarize LastPowerOffTime=max(TimeGenerated) by DstHostname
| where datetime_diff('day',datetime(now),LastPowerOffTime) >= 20; 
let vm_p_on =
VMwareESXi
| where TimeGenerated > ago(14d)
| where SyslogMessage has ('VmPoweredOnEvent')
| extend DstHostname = extract(@'\[\d+\]\s+\[(.*?)\s+on', 1, SyslogMessage)
| summarize LastPowerOnTime=max(TimeGenerated) by DstHostname
| where datetime_diff('day',datetime(now),LastPowerOnTime) >= 20;
let off_vms =
vm_p_on
| join (vm_p_off) on DstHostname
| where LastPowerOffTime > LastPowerOnTime
| summarize p_off_vm = make_set(DstHostname,200)
| extend k=1;
VMwareESXi
| where TimeGenerated between (ago(24h) .. datetime(now))
| where SyslogMessage has ('VmPoweredOnEvent')
| extend DstHostname = extract(@'\[\d+\]\s+\[(.*?)\s+on', 1, SyslogMessage)
| extend k=1
| join (off_vms) on k
| where p_off_vm !has DstHostname
| summarize rec_p_on = make_set(DstHostname,200)
| extend hostname = iff(array_length(rec_p_on) > 0, rec_p_on[0], "")
| extend NTDomain = tostring(split(hostname, '\\', 1)[0]), HostName = tostring(split(hostname, '.', 0)[0])

Declared entities

Host

Related content

Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.

Source provenance

GitHub

Displayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.

Source identifier
4cdcd5d8-89df-4076-a917-bc50abb9f2ab
Additional source files 2Solutions/VMWareESXi/Analytic Rules/ESXiDormantVMStarted.yamlsource ↗Solutions/VMWareESXi/Data/Solution_VMWareESXi.jsonsolution-membership ↗
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING

Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC

GSTEP sync dates, separate from the source content’s publication dates.