Entra ID Guest Account Promoted to Member

Last updated a month ago on 2026-05-20

Created a month ago on 2026-05-20

About

Identifies Entra ID user accounts converted from Guest to Member type via an Update user operation. A Guest-to-Member conversion grants the account full directory read access, removes external-identity Conditional Access restrictions, and makes the account indistinguishable from an internal employee. An attacker who compromises a guest account and promotes it to Member type gains persistent tenant access without triggering role assignment alerts.

Tags

Domain: CloudDomain: IdentityData Source: AzureData Source: Microsoft Entra IDData Source: Microsoft Entra ID Audit LogsUse Case: Identity and Access AuditTactic: PersistenceLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Account Manipulation (T1098)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

B2B collaboration migrations where external users are intentionally promoted to full membership. Organizational restructuring that converts former contractors to permanent employees in place.

License

Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type: Query (Kibana Query Language)
Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns: logs-azure.auditlogs-*
Related Integrations: azure(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗data_stream.dataset: "azure.auditlogs" and
azure.auditlogs.operation_name: "Update user" and
azure.auditlogs.properties.target_resources.*.modified_properties.*.display_name: "UserType" and
azure.auditlogs.properties.target_resources.*.modified_properties.*.old_value: *Guest* and
azure.auditlogs.properties.target_resources.*.modified_properties.*.new_value: *Member* and
event.outcome: (Success or success)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Entra ID Guest Account Promoted to Member in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).