AN0952: Analytic 0952
Detects unauthorized modification of host binaries, modules, or services within ESXi. Correlates tampered files with subsequent unexpected service behavior or malicious module load attempts.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic matters because ESXi hosts often support critical virtualization workloads. Unauthorized changes to host binaries, modules, or services can undermine trust in the hypervisor layer and create operational risk that is difficult to see from guest systems alone. The decision value is whether the organization can prove ESXi host integrity and correlate suspicious file tampering with abnormal service behavior or module load attempts.
Executive priority
Prioritize this as an infrastructure-resilience and evidence-readiness question: do teams have enough ESXi host-level visibility to detect unauthorized modification of critical host components, and can they investigate quickly if virtualization services behave unexpectedly? For leaders, this supports risk decisions around hypervisor hardening, monitoring investment, incident response readiness, and audit evidence for critical infrastructure controls.
Technical view
For SOC, detection engineering, and IR teams, validate ESXi-specific monitoring for changes to host binaries, modules, and services, then test whether those changes can be correlated with unexpected service behavior or module load attempts. Because no official detection logic is provided, teams should treat AN0952 as an analytic objective rather than a ready-to-run rule. Confirm what ESXi host logs, file integrity evidence, service state changes, and module load telemetry are actually available and retained.
Likely telemetry
- ESXi host file integrity or configuration change records for binaries, modules, and services
- ESXi service start, stop, restart, failure, or unexpected behavior logs
- Module load attempt records or related kernel/module logging where available
- Administrative activity logs showing authorized maintenance or change windows
- Centralized log collection from ESXi hosts to support correlation and retention
Detection direction
- Baseline expected ESXi host binaries, modules, and services so unauthorized modification can be distinguished from approved patching or maintenance.
- Correlate file or service tampering evidence with subsequent unexpected service behavior or module load attempts, as described by the analytic.
- Tune for false positives from legitimate ESXi updates, administrator maintenance, vendor patches, and approved configuration changes.
- Validate blind spots where ESXi hosts are not forwarding logs, file integrity data is absent, or retention is too short for incident reconstruction.
- Because tactics and relationships are not supplied, avoid assuming a specific adversary objective; focus on host integrity and suspicious post-change behavior.
Mitigation priorities
- Establish approved change management and maintenance windows for ESXi host binaries, modules, and services.
- Harden administrative access and restrict who can modify ESXi host components.
- Implement or validate host integrity monitoring and centralized logging for ESXi systems.
- Retain sufficient ESXi telemetry to support incident response correlation between tampered files, service anomalies, and module load attempts.
- Regularly review monitoring coverage for critical virtualization hosts as part of resilience, compliance, and incident readiness programs.
Analyst notes and limits
AN0952 is a detection analytic for the enterprise ATT&CK domain and applies to ESXi. The supplied ATT&CK description is specific to unauthorized modification of host binaries, modules, or services and correlation with unexpected service behavior or malicious module load attempts. No tactics, relationships, aliases, labels, or official detection implementation are supplied.
This take is limited to the official STIX fields, external reference, and supplied relationship context. No active exploitation, attribution, specific detection logic, or guaranteed coverage is indicated. Local ESXi logging configuration, file integrity tooling, administrative practices, and retention determine whether this analytic can be operationalized.
Analytic 0952
Detects unauthorized modification of host binaries, modules, or services within ESXi. Correlates tampered files with subsequent unexpected service behavior or malicious module load attempts.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 313bf8ad23a8… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
-
[1]
mitre-attack AN0952Open source URL
Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.