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Description

The following analytic identifies the invitation of an external guest user within Azure AD. With Azure AD B2B collaboration, users and administrators can invite external users to collaborate with internal users. External guest account invitations should be monitored by security teams as they could potentially lead to unauthorized access. An example of this attack vector was described at BlackHat 2022 by security researcher Dirk-Jan during his tall Backdooring and Hijacking Azure AD Accounts by Abusing External Identities

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

  • Last Updated: 2023-12-20
  • Author: Gowthamaraj Rajendran, Mauricio Velazco, Splunk
  • ID: c1fb4edb-cab1-4359-9b40-925ffd797fb5

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1136.003 Cloud Account Persistence
Kill Chain Phase
  • Installation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
`azure_monitor_aad` operationName="Invite external user" 
| rename properties.*  as * 
| rename initiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName as initiatedBy 
| rename targetResources{}.type as type 
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(user) as user by type, initiatedBy, result, operationName 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `azure_ad_external_guest_user_invited_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: azure_ad_external_guest_user_invited_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 AuditLogs log category.

Known False Positives

Administrator may legitimately invite external guest users. Filter as needed.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
45.0 50 90 External Guest 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: 2