Detection rules › YARA-L

Hunt for Office 365 group creation failures

Severity
low
Type
hunt
Time window
5m
Match by
user
Author
Google Cloud Security
Source
github.com/chronicle/detection-rules

Detects when a group is attempted to be created but fails in Office 365. This could be due to insufficient permissions or other errors

Event coverage

Rules detecting the same action

Other rules on this platform that filter on the same API call or operation.

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 o365_group_creation_failure {

  meta:
    author = "Google Cloud Security"
    description = "Detects when a group is attempted to be created but fails in Office 365. This could be due to insufficient permissions or other errors"
    rule_id = "mr_964c36cd-cf07-446d-bc85-68a937d4441a"
    rule_name = "Hunt for Office 365 group creation failures"
    type = "hunt"
    platform = "azure"
    data_source = "o365"
    severity = "Low"
    priority = "Low"

  events:
    $group.metadata.event_type = "GROUP_CREATION"
    $group.metadata.product_event_type = "Add group."
    $group.metadata.product_name = "Office 365"
    $group.metadata.vendor_name = "Microsoft"
    $group.security_result.action = "BLOCK"
    $group.principal.user.userid = $user

  match:
    $user over 5m

  outcome:
    $risk_score = 35
    $event_count = count_distinct($group.metadata.id)
    $security_summary = array_distinct($group.security_result.summary)
    $user_agent = array_distinct($group.network.http.user_agent)
    $target_application = array_distinct($group.target.application)
    //$principal_user_userid = array_distinct($group.principal.user.userid)
    $proposed_group_name = array_distinct($group.target.group.group_display_name)
    $reason = array_distinct($group.target.labels["MethodExecutionResult."])

  condition:
    $group
}

Detection logic

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

Events

$group GROUP_CREATION

  • metadata.product_event_type = "Add group."
  • security_result.action = "BLOCK"

Correlation

Match key
$user (principal.user.userid)
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($group.metadata.id)
security_summaryarray_distinct($group.security_result.summary)
user_agentarray_distinct($group.network.http.user_agent)
target_applicationarray_distinct($group.target.application)
proposed_group_namearray_distinct($group.target.group.group_display_name)
reasonarray_distinct($group.target.labels["MethodExecutionResult."])