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Description

The following analytic identifies the addition of a new federated domain in an organization's Office 365 environment. This behavior is detected by analyzing the Office 365 management activity logs using the Splunk query o365_management_activity, specifically filtering for the Workload=Exchange and Operation="Add-FederatedDomain" parameters. The addition of a new federated domain can be a significant security concern, as it might indicate unauthorized changes or potential compromises within the Office 365 setup. Attackers, upon gaining sufficient privileges, could add a federated domain to establish a backdoor, bypass security measures, or exfiltrate data. Such unauthorized changes can lead to data breaches, unauthorized access to sensitive data, and potential compromise of organizational infrastructure. When this analytic is triggered, immediate steps should include reviewing the details of the added federated domain, such as the organization name, originating server, user ID, and user key. Concurrent processes or other indicators of compromise should also be investigated to pinpoint the source of the potential breach.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud

  • Last Updated: 2023-08-02
  • Author: Rod Soto, Mauricio Velazco Splunk
  • ID: e155876a-6048-11eb-ae93-0242ac130002

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1136.003 Cloud Account Persistence
T1136 Create Account Persistence
Kill Chain Phase
  • Installation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE
1
2
3
4
5
`o365_management_activity` Operation IN ("*add*", "*new*") AND Operation="*domain*" 
| stats count values(ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue) as new_value by  user user_agent authentication_service action Workload Operation 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `o365_new_federated_domain_added_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: o365_new_federated_domain_added_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • Workload
  • Operation
  • ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue
  • authentication_service
  • user
  • user_agent
  • action

How To Implement

You must install splunk Microsoft Office 365 add-on. This search works with o365:management:activity.

Known False Positives

The creation of a new Federated domain is not necessarily malicious, however these events need to be followed closely, as it may indicate federated credential abuse or backdoor via federated identities at a similar or different cloud provider.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
64.0 80 80 User $user$ has added a new federated domain $new_value$

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

Reference

Test Dataset

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 | version: 3