Entra ID User Added as Service Principal Owner

Last updated 23 days ago on 2025-12-10
Created 5 years ago on 2020-08-20

About

Identifies when a user is added as an owner for an Azure service principal. The service principal object defines what the application can do in the specific tenant, who can access the application, and what resources the app can access. A service principal object is created when an application is given permission to access resources in a tenant. An adversary may add a user account as an owner for a service principal and use that account in order to define what an application can do in the Azure AD tenant.
Tags
Domain: CloudData Source: AzureUse Case: Configuration AuditTactic: PersistenceLanguage: kuery
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

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-*filebeat-*
Related Integrations

azure(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
event.dataset:azure.auditlogs and azure.auditlogs.operation_name:"Add owner to service principal" and event.outcome:(Success or success)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Entra ID User Added as Service Principal Owner 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).