Detection rules › YARA-L

Hunt for Bad Request errors against the Groups endpoint in the Microsoft Graph API

Severity
low
Type
Hunt
Time window
5m
Match by
ip, session
Author
Google Cloud Security
Source
github.com/chronicle/detection-rules

Identify a 400 bad request to the groups endpoint in the MS Graph API. GraphRunner's Invoke-SecurityGroupCloner function will trigger this if it fails to duplicate a group.

References

Rule body yaral

/*
 * Copyright 2025 Google LLC
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

rule ms_graph_group_bad_request {

  meta:
    author = "Google Cloud Security"
    description = "Identify a 400 bad request to the groups endpoint in the MS Graph API. GraphRunner's Invoke-SecurityGroupCloner function will trigger this if it fails to duplicate a group."
    rule_id = "mr_09bafa2b-5131-452c-bf5a-021063cfd5c2"
    rule_name = "Hunt for Bad Request errors against the Groups endpoint in the Microsoft Graph API"
    assumption = "This detects all web activity associated with the groups endpoint with a response code 400, normal admin actions could trigger as well. Tune using IP address ranges for admins and user agents."
    reference = "https://github.com/dafthack/GraphRunner/blob/main/GraphRunner.ps1"
    type = "Hunt"
    data_source = "MS Graph Activity Logs"
    platform = "Azure"
    severity = "Low"
    priority = "Low"

  events:
    $api.metadata.event_type = "NETWORK_HTTP"
    $api.metadata.product_event_type = "Microsoft Graph Activity"
    $api.target.url = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups" nocase
    $api.network.http.method = "POST"
    $api.network.http.response_code = 400

    //Can be tuned for specific User Agent strings being used
    //$api.network.http.user_agent = /PowerShell/ nocase
    //SkypeSpaces triggered during testing so filtering this out
    $api.network.http.user_agent != "SkypeSpaces/1.0a$*+"

    $api.principal.ip = $ip
    $api.network.session_id = $session

  match:
    $ip, $session over 5m

  outcome:
    $risk_score = 35
    $event_count = count_distinct($api.metadata.id)
    $requesting_user_guid = array_distinct($api.principal.user.userid)
    $requesting_ip = array_distinct($api.principal.ip)
    $user_agent = array_distinct($api.network.http.user_agent)
    $location = array_distinct($api.principal.location.name)
    $target_application_id_guid = array_distinct($api.target.resource.product_object_id)
    $session_id = array_distinct($api.network.session_id)
    $target_url = array_distinct($api.target.url)

  condition:
    $api
}

Detection logic

Fires when at least one $api event in the 5m window.

Events

$api NETWORK_HTTP

  • metadata.product_event_type = "Microsoft Graph Activity"
  • target.url = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups"
  • network.http.method = "POST"
  • network.http.response_code = "400"
  • network.http.user_agent != "SkypeSpaces/1.0a$*+"

Correlation

Match key
$ip (principal.ip), $session (network.session_id)
Within
5m

Outcome

Fields the detection emits on a match. $risk_score drives alerting; Chronicle surfaces the rest on the detection.

FieldExpression
risk_score35
event_countcount_distinct($api.metadata.id)
requesting_user_guidarray_distinct($api.principal.user.userid)
requesting_iparray_distinct($api.principal.ip)
user_agentarray_distinct($api.network.http.user_agent)
locationarray_distinct($api.principal.location.name)
target_application_id_guidarray_distinct($api.target.resource.product_object_id)
session_idarray_distinct($api.network.session_id)
target_urlarray_distinct($api.target.url)