Google Workspace MFA Enforcement Disabled For Organization

[metadata]
creation_date = "2020/11/17"
integration = ["google_workspace"]
maturity = "production"
updated_date = "2026/07/08"

[rule]
author = ["Elastic"]
description = """
Detects when an administrator disables multi-factor authentication enforcement or removes the ability for users
to enroll in 2-step verification across a Google Workspace organization or organizational unit. Adversaries with
administrative access may weaken tenant-wide authentication requirements to enable password-only sign-ins, facilitate
credential abuse at scale, and reduce friction for follow-on account takeover across the domain.
"""
false_positives = [
    """
    MFA policies may be modified by system administrators. Verify that the configuration change was expected. Exceptions
    can be added to this rule to filter expected behavior.
    """,
]
from = "now-130m"
index = ["filebeat-*", "logs-google_workspace.admin-*"]
interval = "10m"
language = "kuery"
license = "Elastic License v2"
name = "Google Workspace MFA Enforcement Disabled For Organization"
note = """## Triage and analysis

### Investigating Google Workspace MFA Enforcement Disabled For Organization

Threat actors with Google Workspace administrative access may disable organization-wide 2-step verification (2SV)
controls to weaken authentication for many users at once. Unlike a single user turning off 2SV on their own account,
this change affects tenant policy and can allow password-only sign-ins across an organizational unit or the entire
domain. This supports large-scale credential abuse, reduces MFA friction for follow-on compromise, and can blind
security teams if paired with other admin tampering.

This rule identifies when an administrator sets `google_workspace.admin.new_value` to `false` for either
`ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION` (2SV enforcement turned off) or `ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION` (users can no longer turn
on 2SV).

### Possible investigation steps

- Identify the initiating (actor) administrator by reviewing `user.email` or `user.name`, and note the `source.ip` and `event.ingested` timestamps.
- Identify the setting changed by reviewing `event.action`:
  - `ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION` — 2SV enforcement was disabled for the affected scope.
  - `ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION` — users were prevented from turning on 2SV.
- Review `google_workspace.admin.old_value` and `google_workspace.admin.new_value` to confirm the prior and updated policy state.
- Determine the scope of impact by reviewing `google_workspace.admin.org_unit.name` (if present) and identifying which users or groups inherit the weakened policy.
- Determine whether the change is expected and authorized:
  - Validate there is an approved change request/ticket and that the actor is authorized to modify authentication policy.
  - If the actor account or `source.ip` is unusual, treat the alert as higher priority until proven benign.
- Search Kibana for related authentication and admin activity:
  - Use the following KQL example to find other MFA policy changes by the same actor:
    ```
    data_stream.dataset: "google_workspace.admin" and user.email: "<ACTOR_EMAIL>" and event.action: ("ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION" or "ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION")
    ```
  - Search for user-level 2SV disables that follow this change:
    ```
    data_stream.dataset: ("google_workspace.login" or "google_workspace.user_accounts") and event.action: "2sv_disable"
    ```
  - Scope for other security-weakening admin actions from the same `user.email` within the last 48 hours, such as password policy changes, SSO/SAML modifications, or role assignments.

### False positive analysis

- Verify the MFA policy change aligns with an approved change window, migration, or troubleshooting activity.
- Confirm the initiating administrator is legitimate and not acting from unusual IPs, devices, or locations.
- Even authorized changes materially weaken tenant security, validate business justification and time-bound rollback plans.

### Response and remediation

- Initiate the incident response process based on triage findings.
- If the change is not clearly authorized, restore 2SV enforcement and re-enable Allow users to turn on 2-Step Verification for the affected scope while the investigation proceeds.
- If the initiating admin account is suspected compromised, reset credentials, revoke active sessions, and review delegated admin roles assigned to that account.
- Identify the possible impact of the incident and prioritize accordingly; the following actions can help you gain context:
    - Identify the account role in the cloud environment.
    - Assess the criticality of affected services and servers.
    - Work with your IT team to identify and minimize the impact on users.
    - Identify if the attacker is moving laterally and compromising other accounts, servers, or services.
    - Identify any regulatory or legal ramifications related to this activity.
- Investigate credential exposure on systems compromised or used by the attacker to ensure all compromised accounts are identified. Reset passwords or delete API keys as needed to revoke the attacker's access to the environment. Work with your IT teams to minimize the impact on business operations during these actions.
- Review the permissions assigned to the implicated administrator to ensure that the least privilege principle is being followed.
- Implement security best practices [outlined](https://support.google.com/a/answer/7587183) by Google.
- Determine the initial vector abused by the attacker and take action to prevent reinfection via the same vector.
- Using the incident response data, update logging and audit policies to improve the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the mean time to respond (MTTR).

## Setup

The Google Workspace Fleet integration, Filebeat module, or similarly structured data is required to be compatible with this rule.

### Important Information Regarding Google Workspace Event Lag Times

- As per Google's documentation, Google Workspace administrators may observe lag times ranging from minutes up to 3 days between the time of an event's occurrence and the event being visible in the Google Workspace admin/audit logs.
- This rule is configured to run every 10 minutes with a lookback time of 130 minutes.
- To reduce the risk of false negatives, consider reducing the interval that the Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) Filebeat module polls Google's reporting API for new events.
- By default, `var.interval` is set to 2 hours (2h). Consider changing this interval to a lower value, such as 10 minutes (10m).
- See the following references for further information:
  - https://support.google.com/a/answer/7061566
  - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-module-google_workspace.html"""
references = [
    "https://support.google.com/a/answer/9176657?hl=en#",
    "https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/google-workspace-attack-surface-part-one",
    "https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/google-workspace-attack-surface-part-two"
]
risk_score = 73
rule_id = "cad4500a-abd7-4ef3-b5d3-95524de7cfe1"
severity = "high"
tags = [
    "Domain: Cloud",
    "Data Source: Google Workspace",
    "Use Case: Configuration Audit",
    "Tactic: Impact",
    "Tactic: Credential Access",
    "Tactic: Defense Evasion",
    "Tactic: Persistence",
    "Resources: Investigation Guide",
]
timestamp_override = "event.ingested"
type = "query"

query = '''
data_stream.dataset:google_workspace.admin
  and event.action:(ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION or ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION)
  and google_workspace.admin.new_value:false
'''

[rule.investigation_fields]
field_names = [
    "user.name",
    "user.email",
    "source.ip",
    "event.action",
    "google_workspace.admin.org_unit.name",
    "google_workspace.admin.old_value",
    "google_workspace.admin.new_value",
]

[[rule.threat]]
framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"

[[rule.threat.technique]]
id = "T1531"
name = "Account Access Removal"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1531/"

[rule.threat.tactic]
id = "TA0040"
name = "Impact"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0040/"

[[rule.threat]]
framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"

[[rule.threat.technique]]
id = "T1556"
name = "Modify Authentication Process"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1556/"

[[rule.threat.technique.subtechnique]]
id = "T1556.006"
name = "Multi-Factor Authentication"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1556/006/"

[rule.threat.tactic]
id = "TA0006"
name = "Credential Access"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0006/"

[[rule.threat]]
framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"

[[rule.threat.technique]]
id = "T1556"
name = "Modify Authentication Process"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1556/"

[[rule.threat.technique.subtechnique]]
id = "T1556.006"
name = "Multi-Factor Authentication"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1556/006/"

[rule.threat.tactic]
id = "TA0005"
name = "Defense Evasion"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/"


[[rule.threat]]
framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"

[[rule.threat.technique]]
id = "T1556"
name = "Modify Authentication Process"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1556/"

[[rule.threat.technique.subtechnique]]
id = "T1556.006"
name = "Multi-Factor Authentication"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1556/006/"

[rule.threat.tactic]
id = "TA0003"
name = "Persistence"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/"