How do I use Azure Sentinel Hunting?

Here are some general steps for using Azure Sentinel Hunting:

  1. Define your goals: Before you start hunting for threats, you should define your goals and objectives. Determine what you want to achieve with your hunting activities and what types of threats you are looking for.
  2. Create custom queries: Use Azure Sentinel’s query language to create custom queries that search for specific types of threats and anomalies. Queries can be based on a variety of criteria, such as IP addresses, user accounts, and activity patterns.
  3. Analyze the data: Once you have created your queries, run them against your organization’s data to identify potential threats and suspicious activity. Use Azure Sentinel’s visualizations and dashboards to gain insights into your data and identify patterns and trends.
  4. Investigate potential threats: When you identify a potential threat, investigate it further to determine its severity and impact on your organization. Use Azure Sentinel’s incident management features to track and document your investigation.
  5. Remediate threats: Once you have confirmed a threat, take appropriate action to remediate it. Depending on the severity of the threat, this may involve blocking IP addresses, disabling user accounts, or taking other security measures.
  6. Share insights and findings: Collaborate with other security analysts to share insights and findings from your hunting activities. This can help to improve the effectiveness of your hunting activities and increase your organization’s overall security posture.
  7. Continuously monitor for new threats: Hunting for threats is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and analysis of your organization’s data. Regularly review your queries and adjust them as necessary to ensure that you are able to detect new and emerging threats.

Overall, Azure Sentinel Hunting is a powerful tool for proactively detecting and responding to potential security threats. By using custom queries, analyzing data, investigating potential threats, and taking appropriate remediation actions, you can help to keep your organization’s data and systems secure.

How do I configure Azure Sentinel Hunting?

To configure Azure Sentinel Hunting, you can follow these general steps:

  1. Define your hunting goals: Determine what you want to achieve with your hunting activities and what types of threats you are looking for.
  2. Create custom queries: Use Azure Sentinel’s query language to create custom queries that search for specific types of threats and anomalies. Queries can be based on a variety of criteria, such as IP addresses, user accounts, and activity patterns.
  3. Configure hunting rules: Hunting rules are sets of custom queries that run automatically on a regular basis to detect potential threats. You can configure hunting rules in Azure Sentinel using the Hunting section of the Azure Sentinel console.
  4. Analyze the data: Once you have created your queries and configured your hunting rules, run them against your organization’s data to identify potential threats and suspicious activity. Use Azure Sentinel’s visualizations and dashboards to gain insights into your data and identify patterns and trends.
  5. Investigate potential threats: When you identify a potential threat, investigate it further to determine its severity and impact on your organization. Use Azure Sentinel’s incident management features to track and document your investigation.
  6. Remediate threats: Once you have confirmed a threat, take appropriate action to remediate it. Depending on the severity of the threat, this may involve blocking IP addresses, disabling user accounts, or taking other security measures.
  7. Share insights and findings: Collaborate with other security analysts to share insights and findings from your hunting activities. This can help to improve the effectiveness of your hunting activities and increase your organization’s overall security posture.
  8. Continuously monitor for new threats: Hunting for threats is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and analysis of your organization’s data. Regularly review your queries and adjust them as necessary to ensure that you are able to detect new and emerging threats.

Overall, configuring Azure Sentinel Hunting involves creating custom queries, configuring hunting rules, and analyzing your organization’s data to identify potential threats. By following these steps and continuously monitoring for new threats, you can help to keep your organization’s data and systems secure.

How do I configure Azure Sentinel Hunting with the Azure Portal or Powershell examples ?

Here are some examples of how to configure Azure Sentinel Hunting using the Azure portal and PowerShell:

  1. Azure portal:
  • Navigate to the Azure Sentinel workspace in the Azure portal.
  • Click on the “Hunting” option in the left-hand menu.
  • Click on “New Hunting Rule” to create a new hunting rule.
  • Enter a name and description for the rule, and select the frequency at which it should run.
  • Enter your custom query in the “Query” field.
  • Click “Create” to save the hunting rule.
  1. PowerShell:
  • Install the Azure PowerShell module if you haven’t already done so.
  • Connect to your Azure account using the Connect-AzAccount cmdlet.
  • Select the Azure Sentinel workspace you want to configure using the Select-AzSubscription and Select-AzResourceGroup cmdlets.
  • Use the New-AzSentinelHuntingRule cmdlet to create a new hunting rule. Here’s an example:




$ruleName = "MyHuntingRule"
$description = "This rule hunts for suspicious activity"
$query = "SecurityEvent | where TimeGenerated > ago(1d)"
$interval = "PT1H" # Run every hour
New-AzSentinelHuntingRule -Name $ruleName -Description $description -Query $query -Interval $interval

These are just some examples of how to configure Azure Sentinel Hunting using the Azure portal and PowerShell. You can customize your queries and hunting rules to suit your organization’s specific needs and requirements.

Author: tonyhughes