User Added to Privileged Group in Active Directory

Last updated 20 days ago on 2025-04-24
Created 4 years ago on 2021-01-09

About

Identifies a user being added to a privileged group in Active Directory. Privileged accounts and groups in Active Directory are those to which powerful rights, privileges, and permissions are granted that allow them to perform nearly any action in Active Directory and on domain-joined systems.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceUse Case: Active Directory MonitoringData Source: Active DirectoryData Source: Windows Security Event LogsLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

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

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-system.security*logs-windows.forwarded*winlogbeat-*
Related Integrations

system(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
iam where host.os.type == "windows" and event.action == "added-member-to-group" and
(
    group.id : "S-1-5-21*" and
    (
        group.name : (
            "Admin*",
            "Domain Admins",
            "Enterprise Admins",
            "Backup Admins",
            "Schema Admins",
            "DnsAdmins",
            "Exchange Organization Administrators",
            "Print Operators",
            "Server Operators",
            "Account Operators"
        )
    ) or
    (
        group.id : (
            "S-1-5-21-*-544",
            "S-1-5-21-*-512",
            "S-1-5-21-*-519",
            "S-1-5-21-*-551",
            "S-1-5-21-*-518",
            "S-1-5-21-*-1101",
            "S-1-5-21-*-1102",
            "S-1-5-21-*-550",
            "S-1-5-21-*-549",
            "S-1-5-21-*-548"
        )
    )
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect User Added to Privileged Group in Active Directory 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(opens in a new tab or window).