Skip to content

Feature Request: Add Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational to natively collected Windows event channels #2446

Description

@doit4everyone

Describe the feature

The UTMStack Windows agent (v11.2.12 CE) does not collect the
Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational event channel. The channel
list is hardcoded in the agent binary.

Confirmed via binary analysis on utmstack_agent_service_windows_amd64.exe:

  • ForwardedEvents → present ✅
  • Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational → absent ❌

Use Case

Sysmon is an industry standard for endpoint telemetry, widely deployed
in SOC environments. Without native collection, Sysmon-based correlation
rules (ProcessCreate, NetworkConnect, LSASS access, named pipes, registry
persistence) require a WEF workaround that is complex to deploy and fails
on Windows 11 clients (OS-level restriction, error 2150859027 — confirmed
on Windows 11 24H2).

Windows Server 2022/2025 and Domain Controllers work with the WEF
workaround, but Windows 11 workstations — the majority of endpoints in
SMB environments — cannot use it.

Proposed Solution

Option 1 (preferred): Add Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational to the
list of natively collected Windows event channels in the agent binary.

Option 2: Provide a configuration mechanism to add custom event channels
without recompiling the agent — similar to a winlogbeat.yml approach.

Other Information

Environment:

  • UTMStack CE v11.2.12
  • Sysmon v15.21, schema 4.91

Current workaround: Windows Event Forwarding (WEF) self-subscription
Each machine runs a local WEF subscription that forwards
Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational events to its own ForwardedEvents
channel, which IS natively collected by the UTMStack agent.

Deployment: GPO script (Deploy-WEF-Sysmon-GPO.ps1) that:

  1. Configures WinRM and Wecsvc
  2. Sets ACL on Sysmon channel (Custom isolation requires explicit
    Network Service permission)
  3. Fixes WinRM URL ACLs (netsh http delete/add urlacl)
  4. Creates a SourceInitiated self-subscription via wecutil

Results:

  • Windows Server 2022/2025: workaround works ✅
  • Domain Controllers (Server 2025): workaround works ✅
  • Windows 11 24H2: workaround fails ❌
    Error 2150859027: /SubscriptionManager/WEC endpoint not exposed
    on Windows client SKUs — Wecsvc refuses to register as a local
    subscription source. Confirmed on two distinct Windows 11 machines
    after exhaustive diagnosis (DNS, firewall, URL ACL, SvcHostSplitDisable,
    VBScript deprecation — all eliminated).

Full documentation and lab context:
https://doit4everyone.github.io/utmstack-lab/

Acknowledgements

  • I may be able to implement this feature request
  • This feature might incur a breaking change

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions