How to Use KQL in Microsoft Sentinel for Proactive Threat Hunting

Microsoft Sentinel, combined with Kusto Query Language (KQL), enables security teams to proactively hunt for threats rather than waiting for automated alerts to trigger. Threat hunting begins with a hypothesis and involves searching telemetry for weak signals that standard detection rules may miss. A practical hunter's toolkit in KQL relies on a core set of commands — including where, summarize, join, and extend — applied across Sentinel's Log Analytics tables fed by connectors such as Microsoft Defender, Entra ID, and Microsoft 365. Effective hunting requires adequate data retention, properly configured connectors, and a clear objective before any queries are written. The best hunting queries can later be converted into saved assets, workbooks, or automated analytics rules to strengthen a security operations center's long-term detection capabilities.