/forensics-hunt

Perform structured threat hunting by executing Sigma detection rules against collected log sources. Supports targeted rule selection or full rule set execution. Outputs matched detections with evidence context and MITRE ATT&CK annotations.

Usage

/forensics-hunt [options]

Arguments

Argument	Required	Description
--rules	No	Rule IDs to run, comma-separated, or `all` (default: `all`)
--target	No	Target hostname to scope the hunt
--logs-path	No	Path to collected logs directory (default: `.aiwg/forensics/acquisition/logs/`)
--output	No	Output path (default: `.aiwg/forensics/analysis/hunt-findings.md`)
--severity	No	Minimum rule severity to execute: `low`, `medium`, `high`, `critical` (default: `medium`)
--since	No	Only evaluate log entries after this timestamp
--format	No	Output format: `markdown` (default), `json`, `sigma-results`
--list-rules	No	List available rules without executing

Behavior

When invoked, this command:

Discover Log Sources
- Locate collected logs at specified or default path
- Identify log types: auth, syslog, journal, audit, application
- Map log formats to compatible Sigma field mappings
- Validate log file integrity against acquisition checksums
Load Sigma Rules
- Load rules from @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/frameworks/forensics-complete/sigma/
- Filter by --rules selection or severity threshold
- Resolve rule dependencies and required fields
- Report rules skipped due to missing log sources
Execute Detections
- Run each applicable rule against relevant log sources
- Apply field mappings to normalize log formats
- Filter by --since timestamp if provided
- Track match counts and false positive indicators

Detection Categories

Category	Example Rules
Authentication	`ssh-brute-force-success`, `password-spray`, `invalid-user-spikes`
Privilege Escalation	`sudo-to-root`, `suid-execution`, `new-root-session`
Persistence	`cron-modification`, `new-systemd-unit`, `authorized-key-added`
Lateral Movement	`internal-ssh-from-new-host`, `ssh-agent-forwarding`
Defense Evasion	`log-deletion`, `audit-tampering`, `history-cleared`
Exfiltration	`large-outbound-transfer`, `curl-to-external`, `dns-exfil`
C2	`reverse-shell-indicators`, `beaconing-intervals`, `tunnel-traffic`

Result Enrichment
- Extract matching log lines as evidence
- Provide context window (5 lines before/after match)
- Link detections to MITRE ATT&CK technique IDs
- Score detection confidence (HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW) based on rule quality
Hunt Summary
- Count detections by severity and category
- Identify accounts, IPs, and processes involved
- Generate prioritized finding list
- Recommend follow-up investigation steps

Examples

Example 1: Full rule set, all logs

/forensics-hunt

Example 2: Specific rules against a target

/forensics-hunt --rules ssh-brute-force-success,sudo-to-root --target web01

Example 3: High and critical severity only

/forensics-hunt --severity high

Example 4: Hunt recent log entries

/forensics-hunt --since 2026-02-26T18:00:00Z --severity medium

Example 5: List available rules

/forensics-hunt --list-rules

Example 6: JSON output for SIEM import

/forensics-hunt --severity high --format json

Output

Artifacts are saved to .aiwg/forensics/analysis/:

.aiwg/forensics/analysis/
├── hunt-findings.md          # Human-readable detection results
├── hunt-findings.json        # Machine-readable results
└── rule-execution-log.yaml   # Which rules ran, match counts, errors

Sample Output

Threat Hunt: web01-2026-02-27
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Log sources: auth.log, syslog, journal, audit.log (140.6 MB)
Rules loaded: 47 applicable (of 63 total, 16 skipped: missing sources)

Executing rules...

[HIGH  ] ssh-brute-force-success      MATCH (1 event)
[HIGH  ] sudo-to-root                 MATCH (2 events)
[CRITICAL] cron-modification          MATCH (1 event)
[HIGH  ] reverse-shell-indicators     MATCH (1 event)
[MEDIUM] invalid-user-spikes          MATCH (847 events)
[MEDIUM] curl-to-external             MATCH (3 events)
[LOW   ] failed-su-attempts           no match
[LOW   ] password-spray               no match

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Detection Summary:
  CRITICAL: 1   HIGH: 3   MEDIUM: 2   LOW: 0
  Total detections: 6 rules matched across 855 events

--- ssh-brute-force-success (HIGH, T1110.001) ---
Match: 2026-02-26 22:29:01 Accepted publickey for deploy from 185.220.101.42 port 51823
Context: Following 847 failed attempts (22:14:33-22:29:00) from same IP
Confidence: HIGH

--- cron-modification (CRITICAL, T1053.003) ---
Match: 2026-02-26 22:33:45 crontab: deploy modified crontab for root
Context: 4 minutes after successful SSH login from attacker IP
Confidence: HIGH

Hunt complete.
Output: .aiwg/forensics/analysis/hunt-findings.md

Available Rules List (--list-rules)

ID                          Severity  Category           Description
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ssh-brute-force-success     HIGH      Authentication     Successful login after brute force
password-spray              MEDIUM    Authentication     Many failed logins across accounts
sudo-to-root                HIGH      Privilege Esc.     User obtained root via sudo
new-root-session            HIGH      Privilege Esc.     Root shell opened (non-login)
cron-modification           CRITICAL  Persistence        Crontab file modified
new-systemd-unit            HIGH      Persistence        New systemd unit installed
authorized-key-added        HIGH      Persistence        New SSH authorized key added
log-deletion                HIGH      Defense Evasion    Log file deleted or truncated
reverse-shell-indicators    HIGH      C2                 Bash/nc/python reverse shell pattern
beaconing-intervals         MEDIUM    C2                 Regular outbound connection pattern
large-outbound-transfer     HIGH      Exfiltration       Unusually large outbound data transfer

References

@$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/frameworks/forensics-complete/agents/log-analyst.md - Log Analyst
@$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/frameworks/forensics-complete/sigma/ - Sigma rule library
@$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/frameworks/forensics-complete/commands/forensics-ioc.md - IOC extraction from findings
@$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/frameworks/forensics-complete/commands/forensics-timeline.md - Timeline correlation