Azure Storage Account Deletions by User

Last updated 11 days ago on 2025-10-08

Created 11 days ago on 2025-10-08

About

Identifies when a single user or service principal deletes multiple Azure Storage Accounts within a short time period. This behavior may indicate an adversary attempting to cause widespread service disruption, destroy evidence, or execute a destructive attack such as ransomware. Mass deletion of storage accounts can have severe business impact and is rarely performed by legitimate administrators except during controlled decommissioning activities.

Tags

Domain: CloudDomain: StorageData Source: AzureData Source: Azure Activity LogsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ImpactLanguage: kuery

Severity

high

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Impact (TA0040)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Data Destruction (T1485)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Service Stop (T1489)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Infrastructure teams may legitimately delete multiple storage accounts during planned decommissioning, resource cleanup, or large-scale infrastructure optimization. Verify that the deletion activity was expected and follows organizational change management processes. Consider exceptions for approved maintenance windows or automation service principals.

License

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

Definition

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

event.dataset: azure.activitylogs and
    azure.activitylogs.operation_name: "MICROSOFT.STORAGE/STORAGEACCOUNTS/DELETE" and
    azure.activitylogs.identity.claims_initiated_by_user.name: *

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Azure Storage Account Deletions by User 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).