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Description

The following analytic identifies the assignment of the Application Administrator role to an Azure AD user. It leverages Azure Active Directory events, specifically monitoring the "Add member to role" operation. This activity is significant because users in this role can manage all aspects of enterprise applications, including credentials, which can be used to impersonate application identities. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could escalate privileges, manage application settings, and potentially access sensitive resources by impersonating application identities, posing a significant security risk to the Azure AD tenant.

  • Type: TTP

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

  • Last Updated: 2024-05-15
  • Author: Mauricio Velazco, Gowthamaraj Rajendran, Splunk
  • ID: eac4de87-7a56-4538-a21b-277897af6d8d

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1098 Account Manipulation Persistence, Privilege Escalation
T1098.003 Additional Cloud Roles Persistence, Privilege Escalation
Kill Chain Phase
  • Installation
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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 `azure_monitor_aad`  "operationName"="Add member to role"  "properties.targetResources{}.modifiedProperties{}.newValue"="\"Application Administrator\"" 
| rename properties.* as * 
| rename initiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName as initiatedBy 
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by user initiatedBy, result, operationName 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `azure_ad_application_administrator_role_assigned_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: azure_ad_application_administrator_role_assigned_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
  • user
  • properties.targetResources{}.type
  • properties.initiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName
  • properties.result

How To Implement

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

Administrators may legitimately assign the Application Administrator role to a user. Filter as needed.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
35.0 70 50 The privileged Azure AD role Application Administrator was assigned for User $user$ initiated by $initiatedBy$

: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