Splunk Enterprise Security

Sysmon query for unauthorized process

frank3nstien
New Member

How can i detect unauthorized sysmon process of Event ID 4 and 255 using splunk query?

0 Karma

larchinal75
Explorer

Good afternoon frank3nstien,

The two events that you are looking at are very rare and only happen under certain circumstances.

Event ID 4: This triggers when the service state has changed. This will fire if you restart the service, shut it down, or any other actions that could be taken upon the service. If you want to find logs regarding this Event ID follow these steps.

While Sysmon is running, go to powershell and type in "services.msc". This will open the list of services currently running on your machine. Find Sysmon and select it. Then click restart. If you want more than one log, repeat the restart action multiple times. Now wait some time then check Splunk for Event ID 4.

Event ID 255: Error: I honestly do not know how to produce this event but again it is a rare event.

I hope this helps! Have a wonderful day!

Resources:
https://www.ultimatewindowssecurity.com/securitylog/encyclopedia/default.aspx?i=j

0 Karma
Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Monitoring AI Agents with Splunk Observability Cloud

Let’s say I’m running a travel planning AI app in production. A user asks for three concise hotel options in ...

[Puzzles] Solve, Learn, Repeat: Tiling

This puzzle (first published here) is based on finding groups of tessellated tiles (inspired by floor tiles I ...

SOK it to Me: Top 3 Benefits of Using Splunk Operator on Kubernetes that’ll Make ...

    Thursday, July 9, 2026  |  11:00AM–12:00PM PDT Duration: 1 hour (includes Q&A) Managing can feel like a ...