Detection: Azure AD Service Principal Enumeration

Updated Date: 2026-05-13 ID: 3f0647ce-add5-4436-8039-cbd1abe74563 Author: Dean Luxton Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

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.

Search

 1`azure_monitor_aad` category IN (MicrosoftGraphActivityLogs) TERM(servicePrincipals)
 2  
 3| fillnull
 4  
 5| rex field="properties.requestUri" "https\:\/\/graph.microsoft.com\/beta\/servicePrincipals\/(?P<servicePrincipalb>.*?)\/"
 6  
 7| rex field="properties.requestUri" "https\:\/\/graph.microsoft.com\/v1.0\/servicePrincipals\/(?P<servicePrincipalv1>.*?)\/"
 8  
 9| eval spn=coalesce(servicePrincipalb,servicePrincipalv1)
10  
11| fillnull
12  
13| stats count min(_time) as _time dc(spn) as spn_count values(user_id) as user_id
14    BY dest user src
15       vendor_account vendor_product signature
16  
17| where spn_count>9
18  
19| `azure_ad_service_principal_enumeration_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Azure Active Directory MicrosoftGraphActivityLogs	Azure	`'azure:monitor:aad'`	`'Azure AD'`

Macros Used

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

azure_ad_service_principal_enumeration_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
T1087.004	Cloud Account	Discovery
T1526	Cloud Service Discovery	Discovery

Exploitation

DE.CM

CIS 10

Scattered Spider

Storm-0501

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 Finding (Notable)	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Intermediate Finding (Risk Event)	No

TTP detections generate a Finding (Notable) and may generate Intermediate Findings (Risk Events) for associated entities.

Implementation

Run this detection over historical data to identify then tune out any known services which may be performing this action. Thresholds can be lowered or raised to meet requirements. The Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Cloud Services add-on is required to ingest MicrosoftGraphActivityLogs via Azure EventHub. See reference for links for further details on how to onboard this log source.

Known False Positives

No false positives have been identified at this time.

Associated Analytic Story

Finding

Title	Entity Field	Entity Type	Risk Score
$spn_count$ Service Principals have been enumerated by $user_id$ from IP $src$	user	user	50

Threat Objects

Field	Type
src	ip_address

References

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: 10