↳ GitHub sourceAnalytics ruleMedium
Exchange workflow MailItemsAccessed operation anomaly
Description
'Identifies anomalous increases in Exchange mail items accessed operations.
The query leverages KQL built-in anomaly detection algorithms to find large deviations from baseline patterns.
Sudden increases in execution frequency of sensitive actions should be further investigated for malicious activity.
Manually change scorethreshold from 1.5 to 3 or higher to reduce the noise based on outliers flagged from the query criteria.
Read more about MailItemsAccessed- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/audit-log-investigate-accounts'
- Rule type
- Scheduled
- Version
- 2.0.6
- Declared status
- Available
- Query frequency
- 1d
- Query period
- 14d
- Trigger
- gt 0
Declared MITRE coverage
Declared sources
Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.
Connectors
Data types
KQL query
Original query, unchanged.
let starttime = 14d;
let endtime = 1d;
let timeframe = 1h;
let scorethreshold = 1.5;
let percentthreshold = 50;
// Preparing the time series data aggregated hourly count of MailItemsAccessd Operation in the form of multi-value array to use with time series anomaly function.
let TimeSeriesData =
OfficeActivity
| where TimeGenerated between (startofday(ago(starttime))..startofday(ago(endtime)))
| where OfficeWorkload=~ "Exchange" and Operation =~ "MailItemsAccessed" and ResultStatus =~ "Succeeded"
| project TimeGenerated, Operation, MailboxOwnerUPN
| make-series Total=count() on TimeGenerated from startofday(ago(starttime)) to startofday(ago(endtime)) step timeframe;
let TimeSeriesAlerts = TimeSeriesData
| extend (anomalies, score, baseline) = series_decompose_anomalies(Total, scorethreshold, -1, 'linefit')
| mv-expand Total to typeof(double), TimeGenerated to typeof(datetime), anomalies to typeof(double), score to typeof(double), baseline to typeof(long)
| where anomalies > 0
| project TimeGenerated, Total, baseline, anomalies, score;
// Joining the flagged outlier from the previous step with the original dataset to present contextual information
// during the anomalyhour to analysts to conduct investigation or informed decisions.
TimeSeriesAlerts | where TimeGenerated > ago(2d)
// Join against base logs since specified timeframe to retrive records associated with the hour of anomoly
| join kind=innerunique (
OfficeActivity
| where TimeGenerated > ago(2d)
| extend DateHour = bin(TimeGenerated, 1h)
| where OfficeWorkload=~ "Exchange" and Operation =~ "MailItemsAccessed" and ResultStatus =~ "Succeeded"
| summarize HourlyCount=count(), TimeGeneratedMax = arg_max(TimeGenerated, *), IPAdressList = make_set(Client_IPAddress, 1000), SourceIPMax= arg_max(Client_IPAddress, *), ClientInfoStringList= make_set(ClientInfoString, 1000) by MailboxOwnerUPN, Logon_Type, TenantId, UserType, TimeGenerated = bin(TimeGenerated, 1h)
| where HourlyCount > 25 // Only considering operations with more than 25 hourly count to reduce False Positivies
| order by HourlyCount desc
) on TimeGenerated
| extend PercentofTotal = round(HourlyCount/Total, 2) * 100
| where PercentofTotal > percentthreshold // Filter Users with count of less than 5 percent of TotalEvents per Hour to remove FPs/ users with very low count of MailItemsAccessed events
| order by PercentofTotal desc
| project-reorder TimeGeneratedMax, Type, OfficeWorkload, Operation, UserId, SourceIPMax, IPAdressList, ClientInfoStringList, HourlyCount, PercentofTotal, Total, baseline, score, anomalies
| extend AccountName = tostring(split(UserId, "@")[0]), AccountUPNSuffix = tostring(split(UserId, "@")[1])
Declared entities
Related content
Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.
Source provenance
GitHubDisplayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.
- Commit
9800e51↗- Source identifier
b4ceb583-4c44-4555-8ecf-39f572e827ba
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING
Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC