O365 Compliance Content Search Started
Description
The following analytic detects when a content search is initiated within the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center. It leverages the SearchCreated operation from the o365_management_activity logs under the SecurityComplianceCenter workload. This activity is significant as it may indicate an attempt to access sensitive organizational data, including emails and documents. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized data access, potential data exfiltration, and compliance violations. Monitoring this behavior helps ensure the integrity and security of organizational data.
- Type: TTP
-
Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
- Last Updated: 2024-05-15
- Author: Mauricio Velazco, Splunk
- ID: f4cabbc7-c19a-4e41-8be5-98daeaccbb50
Annotations
ATT&CK
Kill Chain Phase
- Exploitation
NIST
- DE.CM
CIS20
- CIS 10
CVE
Search
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`o365_management_activity` Workload=SecurityComplianceCenter Operation=SearchCreated
| rename user_id as user
| stats count earliest(_time) as firstTime latest(_time) as lastTime by Operation, ObjectId, ExchangeLocations, user, Query
|`security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
|`security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `o365_compliance_content_search_started_filter`
Macros
The SPL above uses the following Macros:
o365_compliance_content_search_started_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
- ObjectId
- ExchangeLocations
- Query
- user_id
How To Implement
You must install the Splunk Microsoft Office 365 Add-on and ingest Office 365 management activity events.
Known False Positives
Compliance content searches may be executed for legitimate purposes, filter as needed.
Associated Analytic Story
RBA
Risk Score | Impact | Confidence | Message |
---|---|---|---|
42.0 | 60 | 70 | A new compliance content search was started by $user$ |
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
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1114/002/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/ediscovery-content-search-overview
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/ediscovery-keyword-queries-and-search-conditions
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/ediscovery-search-for-activities-in-the-audit-log
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: 2