Detection: Azure AD Federated Identity Credential Added To Service Principal

Created: 2026-05-20 Last Updated: 2026-11-03 ID: bfa745d4-4e43-4ff1-ad15-2f663fdf5cbf Author: descambiado, Onur Mustafa Erdogan, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects additions of federated identity credentials to Entra ID service principals. It leverages Azure Active Directory AuditLogs for the "Update service principal" or "Update application" operations and filters on the FederatedIdentityCredentials modifiedProperty. Workload identity federation allows external OIDC workloads such as GitHub Actions or Kubernetes to authenticate as the SP without a secret. If an attacker adds a federated credential pointing to a controlled OIDC issuer, they gain a persistent secretless authentication path into the SP that survives credential rotations and is not visible in standard secrets monitoring.

Search

 1`azure_monitor_aad`
 2category=AuditLogs
 3operationName IN ("Update application", "Update service principal")
 4properties.targetResources{}.modifiedProperties{}.displayName="FederatedIdentityCredentials"
 5
 6
 7| rename properties.* as *
 8
 9| rename initiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName as initiatedBy
10
11| rename initiatedBy.app.displayName as initiatedByApp
12
13
14| eval actor = coalesce(initiatedBy, initiatedByApp)
15
16
17| rename targetResources{}.displayName as targetSpName
18
19| rename userAgent as user_agent
20
21
22| eval index_number=mvfind('targetResources{}.modifiedProperties{}.displayName', "FederatedIdentityCredentials")
23
24| eval newCreds = mvindex('targetResources{}.modifiedProperties{}.newValue', index_number)
25
26| eval oldCreds = mvindex('targetResources{}.modifiedProperties{}.oldValue', index_number)
27
28
29| spath input=newCreds path={}.name output=newCredNames
30
31| spath input=oldCreds path={}.name output=oldCredNames
32
33
34| where mvcount(newCredNames) > coalesce(mvcount(oldCredNames), 0)
35
36
37| fillnull
38
39
40| stats count min(_time) as firstTime
41              max(_time) as lastTime
42  BY dest src vendor_account vendor_product user_agent
43     actor targetSpName newCreds oldCreds signature
44
45
46| rename actor as user
47
48
49| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
50
51| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
52
53| `azure_ad_federated_identity_credential_added_to_service_principal_filter`

Data Source

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

Macros Used

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

azure_ad_federated_identity_credential_added_to_service_principal_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
T1078.004	Cloud Accounts	Initial Access
T1098.001	Additional Cloud Credentials	Persistence
T1586.003	Cloud Accounts	Privilege Escalation

Exploitation

Delivery

Weaponization

Installation

DE.CM

CIS 10

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)	Yes

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

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 through an EventHub. This analytic was written to be used with the "azure:monitor:aad sourcetype" leveraging the AuditLogs log category.

Known False Positives

Platform engineers legitimately configure federated credentials when setting up GitHub Actions OIDC federation, Kubernetes Workload Identity, or other secretless CI/CD patterns. Validate the actor, the target SP, and whether the issuer in newCreds corresponds to a known trusted OIDC provider. Unknown issuers or overly permissive subject claims in the newCreds JSON warrant immediate investigation.

Associated Analytic Story

Finding

Title	Entity Field	Entity Type	Risk Score
User [$user$] added Federated Identity Credential to service principal [$targetSpName$] from [$src$]	user	user	50

Intermediate Findings

Message	Entity Field	Entity Type	Risk Score
User [$user$] added Federated Identity Credential to service principal [$targetSpName$] from [$src$]	targetSpName	user	50

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: 1