Detection: Microsoft Intune Bulk Wipe

Updated Date: 2026-03-27 ID: c3f48aa9-878e-443f-8889-e42a11a9bea9 Author: Jake Enea Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects a high volume of "wipe ManagedDevice" events from the Intune admin portal (5+ per hour by default). It leverages Intune audit logs to identify when this action is triggered. This activity is significant beacuse the "wipe ManagedDevice" action factory resets devices connected to your Microsoft Intune tenant. If confirmed malicious, an attacker can abuse this action to perform a large-scale data wiping attack against your managed endpoints.

Search

 1`azure_monitor_activity`
 2operationName="wipe ManagedDevice"
 3
 4| rename identity as user
 5         resultType as result
 6
 7| fillnull
 8
 9| table _time action command dest user src
10        vendor_account vendor_product change_type
11        properties.Targets.*
12
13
14| stats min(_time) as firstTime
15        max(_time) as lastTime
16        values(*) as *
17  count by user
18
19
20| where count >= 5
21
22| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
23
24| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
25
26| `microsoft_intune_bulk_wipe_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Azure Monitor Activity	Azure	`'azure:monitor:activity'`	`'Azure AD'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
azure_monitor_activity	`sourcetype=azure:monitor:activity`
microsoft_intune_bulk_wipe_filter	`search *`

microsoft_intune_bulk_wipe_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
T1561.001	Disk Content Wipe	Impact

Actions on Objectives

DE.CM

CIS 10

Lazarus Group

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 Notable	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type TTP. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting and generate Notable Events.

Implementation

The Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Cloud Services add-on is required to ingest Intune audit logs via Azure EventHub. To configure this logging, visit Intune > Tenant administration > Diagnostic settings > Add diagnostic settings & send events to the activity audit event hub. Deploy as an event-based detection rule for quick deployment. Adjust the count threshold according to expected activity in your environment.

Known False Positives

Legitimate adminstrative usage of the "wipe ManagedDevice" action might trigger this detection. This action is typically used for offboarding endpoints or in response to a lost or stolen device.

Associated Analytic Story

Azure Active Directory Account Takeover

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Bulk wipe action executed by user $user$ on $dest$

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
user	user	50	No Threat Objects

References

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`Azure AD`	`azure:monitor:activity`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`Azure AD`	`azure:monitor:activity`

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