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OSSEC / HIDS Rule 18149
- Rule family: OSSEC / HIDS
- Rule ID: 18149
- Definition status: Present in current source
- Alert message / subject: Windows User Logoff.
- Rule level: 3
- Definition checked: 2026-10-21
Interpretation and response
This event is recorded as “Windows User Logoff.” Review the originating log and the affected host or service to determine whether the activity was expected.
An OSSEC/HIDS event records or correlates activity. Blocking depends on the originating application and any separately configured Active Response policy; an alert alone does not prove that an attack was blocked.
Documentation
The following guidance was migrated from the historical wiki and reviewed against the rule definition. Legacy ASL product names and interface instructions refer to the versions documented then. Use the current metadata above and your installed configuration when interpreting thresholds, notification settings and response behavior.
Rule ID
18149
Status
The wiki marked this rule Active at the source revision. Current definition status is shown above.
Description
This rule detects when an account was logged off. Also see event ID 4647 which Windows logs instead of this event in the case of interactive logons when the user logs out.
This event signals the end of a logon session and can be correlated back to the logon event 4624 using the Logon ID.
For network connections (such as to a file server), it will appear that users log on and off many times a day. This phenomenon is caused by the way the Server service terminates idle connections.
If a user turns off his/her computer, Windows does not have an opportunity to log the logoff event until the system restarts. Therefore, some logoff events are logged much later than the time at which they actually occur.
ANONYMOUS LOGONs are routine events on Windows networks.
Microsoft’s comments: This event does not necessarily indicate the time that a user has stopped using a system. For example, if the computer is shut down or loses network connectivity it may not record a logoff event at all.
Logon Type: indicates how the user was logged on. See 4624 for explanation of these codes.
False Positives
A legitimate event may still trigger this rule. Review the surrounding activity before deciding whether it is malicious. This rule detects when files change, therefore, it is not recommended that you disable this rule. Instead, if you do not wish to be alerted when a specific file or files in a particular directory change, please log into the ASL GUI, click on the ASL tab, select the File Integrity menu options and modify your configuration to ignore this file or directory.
If you believe that this is a false positive, please report this to our security team can determine if this is a legitimate case, or if its clever attack on your system. Instructions to report false positives are detailed on the Reporting False Positives documentation page.
Tuning Recommendations
Review Windows audit and alert policy for this event. The copied file-integrity exclusion advice in the wiki did not apply to this Windows logon event.
Similar Rules
= Knowledge Base Articles = None.
Outside References
Source and revision
Migrated from HIDS_18149, wiki page 700, revision 6009 (20190617). Documentation review: 2026-10-21. An archived wiki status of Active is not a current deployment status.
For assistance, provide the rule ID, installed product and rule version, and a sanitized event to Atomicorp support .