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Azure DevOps Service Connection Addition/Abuse - Historic allow list

Description

'This detection builds an allow list of historic service connection use by Builds and Releases and compares to recent history, flagging growth of service connection use which are not manually included in the allow list and not historically included in the allow list Build/Release runs. This is to determine if someone is hijacking a build/release and adding many service connections in order to abuse or dump credentials from service connections.'
Rule type
Scheduled
Version
1.0.6
Declared status
Available
Query frequency
6h
Query period
14d
Trigger
gt 0

Declared MITRE coverage

KQL query

Original query, unchanged.

let starttime = 14d;
let endtime = 6h;
// Ignore Build/Releases with less/equal this number
let ServiceConnectionThreshold = 3;
// New Connections need to exhibit execution of more "new" connections than this number.
let NewConnectionThreshold = 1;
// List of Builds/Releases to ignore in your space
let BypassDefIds = datatable(DefId:string, Type:string, ProjectName:string)
[
//"103", "Release", "ProjectA",
//"42", "Release", "ProjectB",
//"122", "Build", "ProjectB"
];
let HistoricDefs = ADOAuditLogs
| where TimeGenerated between (ago(starttime) .. ago(endtime))
| where OperationName == "Library.ServiceConnectionExecuted"
| extend DefId = tostring(Data.DefinitionId), Type = tostring(Data.PlanType), ConnectionId = tostring(Data.ConnectionId)
| summarize HistoricCount = dcount(tostring(ConnectionId)), ConnectionNames = make_set(tostring(Data.ConnectionName))
  by DefId = tostring(DefId), Type = tostring(Type), ProjectId, ProjectName, ActorUPN;
ADOAuditLogs
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(endtime)
| where OperationName == "Library.ServiceConnectionExecuted"
| extend DefId = tostring(Data.DefinitionId), Type = tostring(Data.PlanType), ConnectionId = tostring(Data.ConnectionId)
| parse ScopeDisplayName with OrganizationName ' (Organization)'
| summarize CurrentCount = dcount(tostring(ConnectionId)), ConnectionNames = make_set(tostring(Data.ConnectionName)), StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated)
  by OrganizationName, DefId = tostring(DefId), Type = tostring(Type), ProjectId, ProjectName, ActorUPN
| where CurrentCount > ServiceConnectionThreshold
| join (HistoricDefs) on ProjectId, DefId, Type, ActorUPN
| join kind=anti BypassDefIds on $left.DefId==$right.DefId and $left.Type == $right.Type and $left.ProjectName == $right.ProjectName
| extend link = iff(
Type == "Build", strcat('https://dev.azure.com/', OrganizationName, '/', ProjectName, '/_build?definitionId=', DefId),
strcat('https://dev.azure.com/', OrganizationName, '/', ProjectName, '/_release?_a=releases&view=mine&definitionId=', DefId))
| where CurrentCount >= HistoricCount + NewConnectionThreshold
| project StartTime, OrganizationName, ProjectName, DefId, link, RecentDistinctServiceConnections = CurrentCount, HistoricDistinctServiceConnections = HistoricCount,
  RecentConnections = ConnectionNames, HistoricConnections = ConnectionNames1, ActorUPN
| extend timestamp = StartTime
| extend AccountName = tostring(split(ActorUPN, "@")[0]), AccountUPNSuffix = tostring(split(ActorUPN, "@")[1])

Declared entities

Account

Related content

Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.

Source provenance

GitHub

Displayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.

Source identifier
5efb0cfd-063d-417a-803b-562eae5b0301
Additional source files 3Solutions/AzureDevOpsAuditing/Analytic Rules/AzDOHistoricServiceConnectionAdds.yamlsource ↗Detections/AzureDevOpsAuditing/AzDOHistoricServiceConnectionAdds.yamlmigration-note ↗Solutions/AzureDevOpsAuditing/Data/Solution_AzureDevOpsAuditing.jsonsolution-membership ↗
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING

Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC

GSTEP sync dates, separate from the source content’s publication dates.