Elastic Security Detection Rules

Azure AKS Kubernetes Events Deleted

Last updated 21 days ago on 2026-07-09
Created 21 days ago on 2026-07-09

About

Detects an identity deleting Kubernetes events on AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service), excluding known AKS control-plane and platform identities. Adversaries delete events (individually or in bulk via deletecollection) to remove evidence of pod creation, exec, or scheduling activity and impair incident response after operating in the cluster. Coverage includes workload service accounts (system:serviceaccount:*), so a compromised in-cluster token wiping events is not excluded.
Tags
Domain: CloudDomain: KubernetesData Source: AzureData Source: Azure Platform LogsData Source: KubernetesUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Defense Evasion (TA0005)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Indicator Removal (T1070)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
Event cleanup jobs or platform tooling may bulk-delete events. Baseline the responsible identities and exclude verified automation after review.
License
Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Query (Kibana Query Language)
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-azure.platformlogs-*
Related Integrations

azure(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
data_stream.dataset:azure.platformlogs and
  event.action:"Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters/diagnosticLogs/Read" and
  azure.platformlogs.category:("kube-audit" or "kube-audit-admin") and
  azure.platformlogs.properties.log.stage:"ResponseComplete" and
  azure.platformlogs.properties.log.objectRef.resource:"events" and
  azure.platformlogs.properties.log.verb:("delete" or "deletecollection") and
  not azure.platformlogs.properties.log.user.username:(
    system\:node\:* or "aksService" or "hcpService" or "readinessChecker" or
    system\:serviceaccount\:kube-system\:*
  )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Azure AKS Kubernetes Events Deleted in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).