Detection: Azure AD Application Administrator Role Assigned

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.

Search

 1`azure_monitor_aad`  operationName="Add member to role"  "properties.targetResources{}.modifiedProperties{}.newValue"="*Application Administrator*"
 2  
 3| rename properties.* as *
 4  
 5| rename initiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName as initiatedBy, userAgent as user_agent
 6  
 7| fillnull
 8  
 9| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
10    BY dest user src
11       vendor_account vendor_product initiatedBy
12       user_agent signature
13  
14| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
15  
16| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
17  
18| `azure_ad_application_administrator_role_assigned_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Azure Active Directory Add member to role	Azure	'azure:monitor:aad'	'Azure AD'

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

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. 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

• Azure Active Directory Privilege Escalation

• Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters

Finding

References

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/roles/concept-understand-roles

• https://posts.specterops.io/azure-privilege-escalation-via-service-principal-abuse-210ae2be2a5

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/003/

• https://dirkjanm.io/azure-ad-privilege-escalation-application-admin/

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/roles/permissions-reference#application-administrator

Detection Testing

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: 15