EXPLORE DETECTIONS
Azure AD Privileged Graph API Permission Assigned
The following analytic detects the assignment of high-risk Graph API permissions in Azure AD, specifically Application.ReadWrite.All, AppRoleAssignment.ReadWrite.All, and RoleManagement.ReadWrite.Directory. It uses azure_monitor_aad data to scan AuditLogs for 'Update application' operations, identifying when these permissions are assigned. This activity is significant as it grants broad control over Azure AD, including application and directory settings. If confirmed malicious, it could lead to unauthorized modifications and potential security breaches, compromising the integrity and security of the Azure AD environment. Immediate investigation is required.
Azure AD Privileged Role Assigned
The following analytic detects the assignment of privileged Azure Active Directory roles to a user. It leverages Azure AD audit logs, specifically monitoring the "Add member to role" operation. This activity is significant as adversaries may assign privileged roles to compromised accounts to maintain persistence within the Azure AD environment. If confirmed malicious, this could allow attackers to escalate privileges, access sensitive information, and maintain long-term control over the Azure AD infrastructure.
Azure AD Privileged Role Assigned to Service Principal
The following analytic detects the assignment of privileged roles to service principals in Azure Active Directory (AD). It leverages the AuditLogs log category from ingested Azure AD events. This activity is significant because assigning elevated permissions to non-human entities can lead to unauthorized access or malicious activities. If confirmed malicious, attackers could exploit these service principals to gain elevated access to Azure resources, potentially compromising sensitive data and critical infrastructure. Monitoring this behavior helps prevent privilege escalation and ensures the security of Azure environments.
Azure AD Service Principal Authentication
The following analytic identifies authentication events of service principals in Azure Active Directory. It leverages the `azure_monitor_aad` data source, specifically targeting "Sign-in activity" within ServicePrincipalSignInLogs. This detection gathers details such as sign-in frequency, timing, source IPs, and accessed resources. Monitoring these events is significant for SOC teams to distinguish between normal application authentication and potential anomalies, which could indicate compromised credentials or malicious activities. If confirmed malicious, attackers could gain unauthorized access to resources, leading to data breaches or further exploitation within the environment.
Azure AD Service Principal Created
The following analytic detects the creation of a Service Principal in an Azure AD environment. It leverages Azure Active Directory events ingested through EventHub, specifically monitoring the "Add service principal" operation. This activity is significant because Service Principals can be used by adversaries to establish persistence and bypass multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies. If confirmed malicious, this could allow attackers to maintain single-factor access to the Azure AD environment, potentially leading to unauthorized access to resources and prolonged undetected activity.
Azure AD Service Principal Enumeration
This detection leverages azure graph activity logs to identify when graph APIs have been used to identify 10 or more service principals. This type of behaviour is associated with tools such as Azure enumberation tools such as AzureHound or ROADtools.
Azure AD Service Principal New Client Credentials
The following analytic detects the addition of new credentials to Service Principals and Applications in Azure AD. It leverages Azure AD AuditLogs, specifically monitoring the "Update application*Certificates and secrets management" operation. This activity is significant as it may indicate an adversary attempting to maintain persistent access or escalate privileges within the Azure environment. If confirmed malicious, attackers could use these new credentials to log in as the service principal, potentially compromising sensitive accounts and resources, leading to unauthorized access and control over the Azure environment.
Azure AD Service Principal Owner Added
The following analytic detects the addition of a new owner to a Service Principal within an Azure AD tenant. It leverages Azure Active Directory events from the AuditLog log category to identify this activity. This behavior is significant because Service Principals do not support multi-factor authentication or conditional access policies, making them a target for adversaries seeking persistence or privilege escalation. If confirmed malicious, this activity could allow attackers to maintain access to the Azure AD environment with single-factor authentication, potentially leading to unauthorized access and control over critical resources.
Azure AD Service Principal Privilege Escalation
This detection identifies when an Azure Service Principal elevates privileges by adding themself to a new app role assignment.
Azure AD Successful Authentication From Different Ips
The following analytic detects an Azure AD account successfully authenticating from multiple unique IP addresses within a 30-minute window. It leverages Azure AD SignInLogs to identify instances where the same user logs in from different IPs in a short time frame. This behavior is significant as it may indicate compromised credentials being used by an adversary, potentially following a phishing attack. If confirmed malicious, this activity could allow unauthorized access to corporate resources, leading to data breaches or further exploitation within the network.
Azure AD Successful PowerShell Authentication
The following analytic identifies a successful authentication event against an Azure AD tenant using PowerShell cmdlets. This detection leverages Azure AD SignInLogs to identify successful logins where the appDisplayName is "Microsoft Azure PowerShell." This activity is significant because it is uncommon for regular, non-administrative users to authenticate using PowerShell, and it may indicate enumeration and discovery techniques by an attacker. If confirmed malicious, this activity could allow attackers to perform extensive reconnaissance, potentially leading to privilege escalation or further exploitation within the Azure environment.
Azure AD Successful Single-Factor Authentication
The following analytic identifies a successful single-factor authentication event against Azure Active Directory. It leverages Azure SignInLogs data, specifically focusing on events where single-factor authentication succeeded. This activity is significant as it may indicate a misconfiguration, policy violation, or potential account takeover attempt. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could gain unauthorized access to the account, potentially leading to data breaches, privilege escalation, or further exploitation within the environment.
Azure AD Tenant Wide Admin Consent Granted
The following analytic identifies instances where admin consent is granted to an application within an Azure AD tenant. It leverages Azure AD audit logs, specifically events related to the admin consent action within the ApplicationManagement category. This activity is significant because admin consent allows applications to access data across the entire tenant, potentially exposing vast amounts of organizational data. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could gain extensive and persistent access to sensitive data, leading to data exfiltration, espionage, further malicious activities, and potential compliance violations.
Azure AD Unusual Number of Failed Authentications From Ip
The following analytic identifies a single source IP failing to authenticate with multiple valid users, potentially indicating a Password Spraying attack against an Azure Active Directory tenant. It uses Azure SignInLogs data and calculates the standard deviation for source IPs, applying the 3-sigma rule to detect unusual numbers of failed authentication attempts. This activity is significant as it may signal an adversary attempting to gain initial access or elevate privileges. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized access, privilege escalation, and potential compromise of sensitive information.
Azure AD User Consent Blocked for Risky Application
The following analytic detects instances where Azure AD has blocked a user's attempt to grant consent to a risky or potentially malicious application. This detection leverages Azure AD audit logs, focusing on user consent actions and system-driven blocks. Monitoring these blocked consent attempts is crucial as it highlights potential threats early on, indicating that a user might be targeted or that malicious applications are attempting to infiltrate the organization. If confirmed malicious, this activity suggests that Azure's security measures successfully prevented a harmful application from accessing organizational data, warranting immediate investigation to understand the context and take preventive measures.
Azure AD User Consent Denied for OAuth Application
The following analytic identifies instances where a user has denied consent to an OAuth application seeking permissions within the Azure AD environment. This detection leverages Azure AD's audit logs, specifically focusing on user consent actions with error code 65004. Monitoring denied consent actions is significant as it can indicate users recognizing potentially suspicious or untrusted applications. If confirmed malicious, this activity could suggest attempts by unauthorized applications to gain access, potentially leading to data breaches or unauthorized actions within the environment. Understanding these denials helps refine security policies and enhance user awareness.
Azure AD User Enabled And Password Reset
The following analytic detects an Azure AD user enabling a previously disabled account and resetting its password within 2 minutes. It uses Azure Active Directory events to identify this sequence of actions. This activity is significant because it may indicate an adversary with administrative access attempting to establish a backdoor identity within the Azure AD tenant. If confirmed malicious, this could allow the attacker to maintain persistent access, escalate privileges, and potentially exfiltrate sensitive information from the environment.
Azure AD User ImmutableId Attribute Updated
The following analytic identifies the modification of the SourceAnchor (ImmutableId) attribute for an Azure Active Directory user. This detection leverages Azure AD audit logs, specifically monitoring the "Update user" operation and changes to the SourceAnchor attribute. This activity is significant as it is a step in setting up an Azure AD identity federation backdoor, allowing an adversary to establish persistence. If confirmed malicious, the attacker could impersonate any user, bypassing password and MFA requirements, leading to unauthorized access and potential data breaches.
Azure Automation Account Created
The following analytic detects the creation of a new Azure Automation account within an Azure tenant. It leverages Azure Audit events, specifically the Azure Activity log category, to identify when an account is created or updated. This activity is significant because Azure Automation accounts can be used to automate tasks and orchestrate actions across Azure and on-premise environments. If an attacker creates an Automation account with elevated privileges, they could maintain persistence, execute malicious runbooks, and potentially escalate privileges or execute code on virtual machines, posing a significant security risk.
Azure Automation Runbook Created
The following analytic detects the creation of a new Azure Automation Runbook within an Azure tenant. It leverages Azure Audit events, specifically the Azure Activity log category, to identify when a new Runbook is created or updated. This activity is significant because adversaries with privileged access can use Runbooks to maintain persistence, escalate privileges, or execute malicious code. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized actions such as creating Global Administrators, executing code on VMs, and compromising the entire Azure environment.
Azure Runbook Webhook Created
The following analytic detects the creation of a new Automation Runbook Webhook within an Azure tenant. It leverages Azure Audit events, specifically the "Create or Update an Azure Automation webhook" operation, to identify this activity. This behavior is significant because Webhooks can trigger Automation Runbooks via unauthenticated URLs exposed to the Internet, posing a security risk. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could use this to execute code, create users, or maintain persistence within the environment, potentially leading to unauthorized access and control over Azure resources.
Batch File Write to System32
The following analytic detects the creation of a batch file (.bat) within the Windows system directory tree, specifically in the System32 or SysWOW64 folders. It leverages data from the Endpoint datamodel, focusing on process and filesystem events to identify this behavior. This activity is significant because writing batch files to system directories can be indicative of malicious intent, such as persistence mechanisms or system manipulation. If confirmed malicious, this could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands with elevated privileges, potentially compromising the entire system.
Bcdedit Command Back To Normal Mode Boot
The following analytic detects the execution of a suspicious `bcdedit` command that reconfigures a host from safe mode back to normal boot. This detection leverages Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) data, focusing on command-line executions involving `bcdedit.exe` with specific parameters. This activity is significant as it may indicate the presence of ransomware, such as BlackMatter, which manipulates boot configurations to facilitate encryption processes. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could allow attackers to maintain control over the boot process, potentially leading to further system compromise and data encryption.
BCDEdit Failure Recovery Modification
The following analytic detects modifications to the Windows error recovery boot configurations using bcdedit.exe with flags such as "recoveryenabled" and "no". It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process names, parent processes, and command-line executions. This activity is significant because ransomware often disables recovery options to prevent system restoration, making it crucial for SOC analysts to investigate. If confirmed malicious, this could hinder recovery efforts, allowing ransomware to cause extensive damage and complicate remediation.