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Azure VM Run Command operations executing a unique PowerShell script

Description

'Identifies when Azure Run command is used to execute a PowerShell script on a VM that is unique. The uniqueness of the PowerShell script is determined by taking a combined hash of the cmdLets it imports and the file size of the PowerShell script. Alerts from this detection indicate a unique PowerShell was executed in your environment.'
Rule type
Scheduled
Version
1.0.8
Query frequency
1d
Query period
1d
Trigger
gt 0

Declared MITRE coverage

Declared sources

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

Connectors

Data types

KQL query

Original query, unchanged.

let RunCommandData = materialize ( AzureActivity
// Isolate run command actions
| where OperationNameValue =~ "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/runCommand/action"
// Confirm that the operation impacted a virtual machine
| where Authorization has "virtualMachines"
// Each runcommand operation consists of three events when successful, StartTimeed, Accepted (or Rejected), Successful (or Failed).
| summarize StartTime=min(TimeGenerated), EndTime=max(TimeGenerated), max(CallerIpAddress), make_list(ActivityStatusValue) by CorrelationId, Authorization, Caller
// Limit to Run Command executions that Succeeded
| where list_ActivityStatusValue has_any ("Succeeded", "Success")
// Extract data from the Authorization field, allowing us to later extract the Caller (UPN) and CallerIpAddress
| extend Authorization_d = parse_json(Authorization)
| extend Scope = Authorization_d.scope
| extend Scope_s = split(Scope, "/")
| extend Subscription = tostring(Scope_s[2])
| extend VirtualMachineName = tostring(Scope_s[-1])
| project StartTime, EndTime, Subscription, VirtualMachineName, CorrelationId, Caller, CallerIpAddress=max_CallerIpAddress, Scope
| join kind=leftouter (
    DeviceFileEvents
    | where InitiatingProcessFileName == "RunCommandExtension.exe"
    | extend VirtualMachineName = tostring(split(DeviceName, ".")[0])
    | project VirtualMachineName, PowershellFileCreatedTimestamp=TimeGenerated, FileName, FileSize, InitiatingProcessAccountName, InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, InitiatingProcessFolderPath, InitiatingProcessId
) on VirtualMachineName
// We need to filter by time sadly, this is the only way to link events
| where PowershellFileCreatedTimestamp between (StartTime .. EndTime)
| project StartTime, EndTime, PowershellFileCreatedTimestamp, VirtualMachineName, Caller, CallerIpAddress, FileName, FileSize, InitiatingProcessId, InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, InitiatingProcessFolderPath, Scope
| join kind=inner(
    DeviceEvents
    | extend VirtualMachineName = tostring(split(DeviceName, ".")[0])
    | where InitiatingProcessCommandLine has "-File"
    // Extract the script name based on the structure used by the RunCommand extension
    | extend PowershellFileName = extract(@"\-File\s(script[0-9]{1,9}\.ps1)", 1, InitiatingProcessCommandLine)
    // Discard results that didn't successfully extract, these are not run command related
    | where isnotempty(PowershellFileName)
    | extend PSCommand = tostring(parse_json(AdditionalFields).Command)
    // The first execution of PowerShell will be the RunCommand script itself, we can discard this as it will break our hash later
    | where PSCommand != PowershellFileName 
    // Now we normalise the cmdlets, we're aiming to hash them to find scripts using rare combinations
    | extend PSCommand = toupper(PSCommand)
    | order by PSCommand asc
    | summarize PowershellExecStartTime=min(TimeGenerated), PowershellExecEnd=max(TimeGenerated), make_list(PSCommand) by PowershellFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine
) on $left.FileName == $right.PowershellFileName
| project StartTime, EndTime, PowershellFileCreatedTimestamp, PowershellExecStartTime, PowershellExecEnd, PowershellFileName, PowershellScriptCommands=list_PSCommand, Caller, CallerIpAddress, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, PowershellFileSize=FileSize, VirtualMachineName, Scope
| order by StartTime asc 
// We generate the hash based on the cmdlets called and the size of the powershell script
| extend TempFingerprintString = strcat(PowershellScriptCommands, PowershellFileSize)
| extend ScriptFingerprintHash = hash_sha256(tostring(PowershellScriptCommands)));
let totals = toscalar (RunCommandData
| summarize count());
let hashTotals = RunCommandData
| summarize HashCount=count() by ScriptFingerprintHash;
RunCommandData
| join kind=leftouter (
hashTotals
) on ScriptFingerprintHash
// Calculate prevalence, while we don't need this, it may be useful for responders to know how rare this script is in relation to normal activity
| extend Prevalence = toreal(HashCount) / toreal(totals) * 100
// Where the hash was only ever seen once.
| where HashCount == 1
| extend timestamp = StartTime
| extend CallerName = tostring(split(Caller, "@")[0]), CallerUPNSuffix = tostring(split(Caller, "@")[1])
| project timestamp, StartTime, EndTime, PowershellFileName, VirtualMachineName, Caller, CallerName, CallerUPNSuffix, CallerIpAddress, PowershellScriptCommands, PowershellFileSize, ScriptFingerprintHash, Prevalence, Scope

Declared entities

AccountIPHost

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
5239248b-abfb-4c6a-8177-b104ade5db56
Additional source files 1Detections/AzureActivity/RareRunCommandPowerShellScript.yamlsource ↗
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.