Detection: Azure AD User Enabled And Password Reset

Updated Date: 2024-09-24 ID: 1347b9e8-2daa-4a6f-be73-b421d3d9e268 Author: Mauricio Velazco, Gowthamaraj Rajendran, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

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.

Search

1`azure_monitor_aad`  (operationName="Enable account" OR operationName="Reset password (by admin)" OR operationName="Update user") 
2| transaction user startsWith=(operationName="Enable account") endsWith=(operationName="Reset password (by admin)") maxspan=2m 
3| rename properties.* as * 
4| rename initiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName as initiatedBy 
5| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(operationName) as operationName values(initiatedBy) as initiatedBy by user, result 
6| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
7| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
8| `azure_ad_user_enabled_and_password_reset_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source	Supported App
Azure Active Directory Enable account	Azure	`'azure:monitor:aad'`	`'Azure AD'`	N/A

Macros Used

Name	Value
azure_monitor_aad	`sourcetype=azure:monitor:aad`
azure_ad_user_enabled_and_password_reset_filter	`search *`

azure_ad_user_enabled_and_password_reset_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1098	Account Manipulation	Persistence

KillChainPhase.EXPLOITAITON

KillChainPhase.INSTALLATION

NistCategory.DE_CM

Cis18Value.CIS_10

APT3

APT41

APT5

Dragonfly

FIN13

HAFNIUM

Kimsuky

Lazarus Group

Magic Hound

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Notable	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type TTP. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting and generate Notable Events.

Implementation

You must install the latest version of Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Cloud Services from Splunkbase(https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/3110/#/details). You must be ingesting Azure Active Directory events into your Splunk environment. This analytic was written to be used with the azure:monitor:aad sourcetype leveraging the AuditLog log category.

Known False Positives

While not common, Administrators may enable accounts and reset their passwords for legitimate reasons. Filter as needed.

Associated Analytic Story

Azure Active Directory Persistence

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message	Risk Score	Impact	Confidence
A user account, $user$, was enabled and its password reset within 2 minutes by $initiatedBy$	45	50	90

The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

References

https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`Azure AD`	`azure:monitor:aad`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`Azure AD`	`azure:monitor:aad`

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 4