↳ GitHub sourceAnalytics ruleMedium

NRT New access credential added to Application or Service Principal

Description

'This will alert when an admin or app owner account adds a new credential to an Application or Service Principal where a verify KeyCredential was already present for the app. If a threat actor obtains access to an account with sufficient privileges and adds the alternate authentication material triggering this event, the threat actor can now authenticate as the Application or Service Principal using this credential. Additional information on OAuth Credential Grants can be found in RFC 6749 Section 4.4 or https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/active-directory/develop/v2-oauth2-client-creds-grant-flow For further information on AuditLogs please see https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/active-directory/reports-monitoring/reference-audit-activities.'
Rule type
NRT
Version
1.0.5
Declared status
Available

Declared MITRE coverage

Declared sources

Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.

Connectors

Data types

KQL query

Original query, unchanged.

AuditLogs
| where OperationName has_any ("Add service principal", "Certificates and secrets management") // captures "Add service principal", "Add service principal credentials", and "Update application - Certificates and secrets management" events
| where Result =~ "success"
| where tostring(InitiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName) has "@" or tostring(InitiatedBy.app.displayName) has "@"
| mv-apply TargetResource = TargetResources on 
  (
      where TargetResource.type =~ "Application"
      | extend targetDisplayName = tostring(TargetResource.displayName),
               targetId = tostring(TargetResource.id),
               targetType = tostring(TargetResource.type),
               keyEvents = TargetResource.modifiedProperties
  )
| mv-apply Property = keyEvents on 
  (
      where Property.displayName =~ "KeyDescription"
      | extend new_value_set = parse_json(tostring(Property.newValue)),
               old_value_set = parse_json(tostring(Property.oldValue))
  )
| where old_value_set != "[]"
| extend diff = set_difference(new_value_set, old_value_set)
| where diff != "[]"
| parse diff with * "KeyIdentifier=" keyIdentifier:string ",KeyType=" keyType:string ",KeyUsage=" keyUsage:string ",DisplayName=" keyDisplayName:string "]" *
| where keyUsage =~ "Verify"
| mv-apply AdditionalDetail = AdditionalDetails on 
  (
      where AdditionalDetail.key =~ "User-Agent"
      | extend UserAgent = tostring(AdditionalDetail.value)
  )
| extend InitiatingAppName = tostring(InitiatedBy.app.displayName)
| extend InitiatingAppServicePrincipalId = tostring(InitiatedBy.app.servicePrincipalId)
| extend InitiatingUserPrincipalName = tostring(InitiatedBy.user.userPrincipalName)
| extend InitiatingAadUserId = tostring(InitiatedBy.user.id)
| extend InitiatingIpAddress = tostring(iff(isnotempty(InitiatedBy.user.ipAddress), InitiatedBy.user.ipAddress, InitiatedBy.app.ipAddress))
// The below line is currently commented out but Microsoft Sentinel users can modify this query to show only Application or only Service Principal events in their environment
//| where targetType =~ "Application" // or targetType =~ "ServicePrincipal"
| project-away diff, new_value_set, old_value_set
| project-reorder TimeGenerated, OperationName, InitiatingUserPrincipalName, InitiatingAadUserId, InitiatingAppName, InitiatingAppServicePrincipalId, InitiatingIpAddress, UserAgent, targetDisplayName, targetId, targetType, keyDisplayName, keyType, keyUsage, keyIdentifier, CorrelationId, TenantId
| extend InitiatedByName = tostring(split(InitiatingUserPrincipalName,'@',0)[0]), InitiatedByUPNSuffix = tostring(split(InitiatingUserPrincipalName,'@',1)[0])

Declared entities

AccountIP

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
e42e889a-caaf-4dbb-aec6-371b37d64298
Additional source files 3Solutions/Microsoft Entra ID/Analytic Rules/NRT_NewAppOrServicePrincipalCredential.yamlsource ↗Detections/AuditLogs/NRT_NewAppOrServicePrincipalCredential.yamlmigration-note ↗Solutions/Microsoft Entra ID/Data/Solution_AAD.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.