O365 Service Principal New Client Credentials
The following analytic detects the addition of new credentials for Service Principals within an Office 365 tenant. It uses O365 audit logs, focusing on events related to credential modifications or additions in the…
Description
The following analytic detects the addition of new credentials for Service Principals within an Office 365 tenant. It uses O365 audit logs, focusing on events related to credential modifications or additions in the AzureActiveDirectory workload. This activity is significant because Service Principals represent application identities, and their credentials allow applications to authenticate and access resources. If an attacker successfully adds or modifies these credentials, they can impersonate the application, leading to unauthorized data access, data exfiltration, or malicious operations under the application's identity.
Detection logic
Detection requirements
- Platform
- IaaSIdentity ProviderSaaS
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.
- Log source category
- o365
Known benign triggers
- Service Principal client credential modifications may be part of legitimate administrative operations. Filter as needed.
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
References
| Reference | Cited by |
|---|---|
| attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/001/ | 2 |
| github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/blob/master/Methodology%20and%20Resources/Cloud%20-%20Azure%20Pentest.md#add-credentials-to-all-enterprise-applications | 2 |
| microsoft.github.io/Azure-Threat-Research-Matrix/Persistence/AZT501/AZT501-2/ | 4 |
| www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/remediation-and-hardening-strategies-for-microsoft-365-to-defend-against-unc2452 | 4 |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- a1b229e9-d962-4222-8c62-905a8a010453
- Tagged by the source as
- NOBELIUM GroupOffice 365 Persistence MechanismsO365 TenantcloudSplunk CloudSplunk EnterpriseSplunk Enterprise Securityidentity
Licence
- Published under
- Apache License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
- Obtained under
- Apache-2.0Read the origin licence
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Aug 26, 2026
- Version
- 1