Azure VM Boot Diagnostics Retrieved

Description

Identifies retrieval of Azure VM boot diagnostics data ("MICROSOFT.COMPUTE/VIRTUALMACHINES/RETRIEVEBOOTDIAGNOSTICSDATA/ACTION") by an identity that has not performed this operation recently. Boot diagnostics expose the VM serial console log and a console screenshot, which frequently contain plaintext boot-time output such as credentials, tokens, cloud-init/agent secrets, and command history. An adversary with VM read/contributor rights can retrieve this data over the control plane, without logging into the guest or touching the network, to harvest credentials.

Detection logic

Its licence does not clear it for publishing here

Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.

Detection requirements

Platform: Containers IaaS Identity Provider Linux macOS Network Devices Office Suite SaaS Windows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.
Log source category: event_index

Known benign triggers

Support engineers, infrastructure-as-code, and VM health automation may legitimately retrieve boot diagnostics during troubleshooting. The first occurrence per principal will alert; baseline expected support users, service principals, and managed identities and exclude them if the activity is verified as authorized.

References

Links the source published beside this detection. Reference is the link the source wrote, unmodified. Class is decided by this catalogue from the host and path, not stated by the source. Cited by counts published detections citing the same resource, including this one, and the sources beneath it count the repositories this catalogue ingests, which is not the same as independent research.
Reference	Class	Cited by
blog.pwnedlabs.io/diving-deep-into-azure-vm-attack-vectors	Unclassified	6
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/boot-diagnostics	Product documentation	Only this detection cites it
www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/blog/2023/08/azure-serial-console-attack-and-defense-part-1	Product documentation	Only this detection cites it
www.netspi.com/blog/technical-blog/adversary-simulation/7-ways-to-execute-command-on-azure-virtual-machine-virtual-machine-scale-sets/	Unclassified	6

Detection rules

Azure VM Boot Diagnostics Retrieved

Description

Detection logic

Detection requirements

Known benign triggers

MITRE ATT&CK mappings

References

From the source

Licence

Authorship

Detection rules