The 2026 Threat Hunter’s Arsenal: Visual Playbook for 100 Windows Event IDs & Sysmon Telemetry

Stop drowning in raw SIEM noise and start hunting adversary behavior with precision. The 2026 Threat Hunter’s Arsenal transforms 100 of the most critical Windows Security, System, Operational, and Sysmon Event IDs into a 132-page visual reference and infographic poster collection designed for Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts, Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) specialists, and detection engineers.

Updated for the modern Windows 11 24H2 and Windows Server 2025 threat landscape, this visual field guide moves beyond static log definitions to show you how attackers chain events together—and how to catch them. Every visual card pairs memorable diagrams with actionable "Golden Rules" for filtering false positives, baselining normal system behavior, and building high-signal correlation rules.

Inside the 10 Tactical Modules:

Endpoint Logon & Session Lifecycle (Events 4624, 4625, 4634, 4647, 4648, 4672, 4776, 4779, 4800): Track NTLM deprecation, explicit credential handoffs, RDP session hijacking, and attacker dwell time.

Kerberos & Identity Protection (Events 4768, 4769, 4770, 4771, 4649, 4765, 4766, 6167, 4627): Detect Kerberoasting encryption downgrades, AS-REP roasting, Golden Tickets, SID History injection, and LSA Machine SID mismatches.

Account Lifecycle Sabotage (Events 4720, 4722, 4723, 4724, 4725, 4726, 4738, 4740, 4767, 4781): Catch rogue account staging, sAMAccountName spoofing (NoPac), DACL backdoors, and automated brute-force unlock loops.

Active Directory & Group Escalation (Events 4727, 4728, 4729, 4732, 4733, 4735, 4741, 4756, 5136, 4662): Expose hit-and-run Tier-0 group additions, Shadow Credentials, RBCD staging, and DCSync replication abuse.

Process Execution, Privileges & Object Access (Events 4688, 4689, 4703, 4704, 4673, 4656, 4663, 4674, 4657, 4798): Correlate parent-child process lineages, dynamic token activation (SeDebugPrivilege), SAM/LSASS handle probing, and service registry diffing.

Persistence Hunting: Services, Tasks & WMI (Events 4697, 7045, 7036, 7040, 4698, 4699, 4700, 4702, 106, 5861): Uncover BYOVD kernel drivers, ephemeral scheduled task execution, and fileless WMI subscriptions across tamper-resistant log channels.

Lateral Movement: SMB, WFP, Firewall & RDP (Events 5140, 5142, 5145, 5156, 5157, 4946–4948, 1149, 21): Monitor named-pipe exploitation, hidden share staging, Windows Filtering Platform socket flows, and host firewall tampering.

Defense Evasion & Defender Subversion (Events 1102, 104, 1100, 4719, 4616, 4608, 1116, 1117, 5001, 5007): Spot surgical audit policy blinding, timestomping, Safe Mode reboots, and Microsoft Defender exclusion tampering.

PowerShell, BITS, AD CS & Code Integrity (Events 4104, 4103, 400, 800, 59, 4799, 4886, 4887, 3076, 3077): Defeat obfuscated script blocks, stealth BITS jobs, rogue certificate enrollment, and vulnerable driver loads.

Mastering Sysmon Telemetry (Sysmon Events 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 22, 25, 29): Connect the entire endpoint kill-chain via ProcessGuid, from DLL side-loading and process hollowing to masqueraded executables and LSASS memory reads.