Environment Variables

Overview

Evidence: Environment Variables Description: ESXi Environment Variables Category: System Platform: esxi Short Name: envvar Is Parsed: Yes Sent to Investigation Hub: Yes Collect File(s): No

Background

Environment variables in ESXi control process execution contexts, system paths, configuration locations, and runtime behavior. Attackers may inject malicious paths, proxy settings, or library preloads via environment variables to enable persistence or hijack system processes.

Data Collected

This collector gathers structured data about environment variables.

Environment Variables Data

Field	Description	Example
AccessTime	Access Time	2023-10-15 14:30:25+03:00
AccessCount	Access Count	123
URL	URL	Example value
Browser	Browser	Example value
Title	Title	Example value
VisitDuration	Visit Duration	Example value
Referrer	Referrer	Example value
TypedCount	Typed Count	123
IsHidden	Is Hidden	true
TransitionType	Transition Type	Example value
VisitID	Visit ID	123
TransitionQualifiers	Transition Qualifiers	Example value
User	User	Example value
Profile	Profile	Example value
HistoryFilePath	History File Path	Example value

Collection Method

This collector parses system environment variables, extracting variable names and their assigned values from the ESXi shell environment and system-wide configuration contexts.

Forensic Value

Environment variable analysis reveals configuration tampering, malicious PATH manipulations, suspicious LD_PRELOAD entries, unauthorized proxy configurations, and other environment-based persistence mechanisms. Comparing against baselines identifies unauthorized modifications that enable privilege escalation or process hijacking.