Azure Many Failed SignIns

Severity: medium
Log types: Azure.Audit
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authentication/overview-authentication
Source: github.com/panther-labs/panther-analysis

This detection looks for a number of failed sign-ins for the same ServicePrincipalName or UserPrincipalName

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Initial Access	`T1078` Valid Accounts
Credential Access	`T1110` Brute Force

Rules detecting the same action

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

Anomalous sign-in location by user account and authenticating application (Kusto)
Anomalous Single Factor Signin (Kusto)
Authentications of Privileged Accounts Outside of Expected Controls (Kusto)
Azure Portal sign in from another Azure Tenant (Kusto)
Azure Service Principal Sign-In Followed by Arc Cluster Credential Access (Elastic)
Azure SignIn via Legacy Authentication Protocol (Panther)
Detect non-admin requesting token for admin applications (Kusto)
Discovery Using AzureHound (Sigma)

Rule body yaml

AnalysisType: rule
Filename: azure_failed_signins.py
RuleID: "Azure.Audit.ManyFailedSignIns"
DisplayName: "Azure Many Failed SignIns"
Enabled: true
# Ten Failed Sign-Ins(Threshold) in Ten Minutes(DedupPeriodMinutes)
Threshold: 10
DedupPeriodMinutes: 10
LogTypes:
  - Azure.Audit
Severity: Medium
Description: >
  This detection looks for a number of failed sign-ins for the same
  ServicePrincipalName or UserPrincipalName
Reports:
  MITRE ATT&CK:
    - TA0006:T1110
    - TA0001:T1078
Runbook: |
  Querying Sign-In logs for the ServicePrincipalName or UserPrincipalName may indicate
  that the principal is under attack, or that a sign-in credential rolled and some
  user of the credential didn't get updated.
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authentication/overview-authentication
SummaryAttributes:
  - properties:ServicePrincipalName
  - properties:UserPrincipalName
  - properties:ipAddress
Tests:
  - Name: Failed Sign-In
    ExpectedResult: True
    Log:
      {
        "calleripaddress": "12.12.12.12",
        "category": "ServicePrincipalSignInLogs",
        "correlationid": "e1f237ef-6548-4172-be79-03818c04c06e",
        "durationms": 0,
        "Level": "4",
        "location": "IE",
        "operationname": "Sign-in activity",
        "operationversion": 1,
        "p_event_time": "2023-07-26 23:00:20.889",
        "p_log_type": "Azure.Audit",
        "properties":
          {
            "appId": "cfceb902-8fab-4f8c-88ba-374d3c975c3a",
            "authenticationProcessingDetails":
              [{ "key": "Azure AD App Authentication Library", "value": "" }],
            "authenticationProtocol": "none",
            "clientCredentialType": "none",
            "conditionalAccessStatus": "notApplied",
            "correlationId": "5889315c-c4ac-4807-99da-e17417eae786",
            "createdDateTime": "2023-07-26 22:58:30.983201900",
            "crossTenantAccessType": "none",
            "flaggedForReview": false,
            "id": "36658c78-02d9-4d8f-84ee-5ca4a3fdefef",
            "incomingTokenType": "none",
            "ipAddress": "12.12.12.12",
            "isInteractive": false,
            "isTenantRestricted": false,
            "location":
              {
                "city": "Dublin",
                "countryOrRegion": "IE",
                "geoCoordinates":
                  {
                    "latitude": 51.35555555555555,
                    "longitude": -5.244444444444444,
                  },
                "state": "Dublin",
              },
            "managedIdentityType": "none",
            "processingTimeInMilliseconds": 0,
            "resourceDisplayName": "Azure Storage",
            "resourceId": "037694de-8c7d-498d-917d-edb650090fa5",
            "resourceServicePrincipalId": "a225221f-8cc5-411a-9cc7-5e1394b8a5b8",
            "riskDetail": "none",
            "riskLevelAggregated": "low",
            "riskLevelDuringSignIn": "low",
            "riskState": "none",
            "servicePrincipalId": "b1c34143-e405-4058-8e29-84596ad737b8",
            "servicePrincipalName": "some-service-principal",
            "status": { "errorCode": 7000215 },
            "tokenIssuerType": "AzureAD",
            "uniqueTokenIdentifier": "NDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD_DD",
          },
        "resourceid": "/tenants/c0dd2fa0-71be-4df8-b2a6-24cee7de069a/providers/Microsoft.aadiam",
        "resultsignature": "None",
        "resulttype": 7000215,
        "tenantid": "a2aa49aa-2c0c-49d2-af87-f402c421df0b",
        "time": "2023-07-26 23:00:20.889",
      }
  - Name: Successful Sign-In
    ExpectedResult: false
    Log:
      {
        "calleripaddress": "12.12.12.12",
        "category": "ServicePrincipalSignInLogs",
        "correlationid": "bf12205b-eea0-43dd-ad6d-b9030dc62a7a",
        "durationms": 0,
        "Level": "4",
        "location": "US",
        "operationname": "Sign-in activity",
        "operationversion": 1,
        "p_log_type": "Azure.Audit",
        "properties":
          {
            "appId": "3b245ca3-dcce-4a54-a070-49ad8de02963",
            "authenticationProcessingDetails":
              [
                {
                  "key": "Azure AD App Authentication Library",
                  "value": "Family: Unknown Library: Unknown 1.0.0 Platform: Unknown",
                },
              ],
            "authenticationProtocol": "none",
            "clientCredentialType": "none",
            "conditionalAccessStatus": "notApplied",
            "correlationId": "52d1e530-786c-443c-8dc8-aa7b1317608e",
            "createdDateTime": "2023-07-27 13:59:53.691680300",
            "crossTenantAccessType": "none",
            "flaggedForReview": false,
            "id": "55270060-d8fe-435e-9bf2-219a1d456b60",
            "incomingTokenType": "none",
            "ipAddress": "12.12.12.12",
            "isInteractive": false,
            "isTenantRestricted": false,
            "location":
              {
                "city": "Springfield",
                "countryOrRegion": "US",
                "geoCoordinates":
                  {
                    "latitude": 42.73333333333333,
                    "longitude": -110.88888888888888,
                  },
                "state": "Oregon",
              },
            "managedIdentityType": "none",
            "processingTimeInMilliseconds": 0,
            "resourceDisplayName": "Office 365 Management APIs",
            "resourceId": "9cc31481-8822-49ff-b638-552ecc26c777",
            "resourceServicePrincipalId": "2acf8174-5e07-4ec4-9de8-08d880129ba5",
            "riskDetail": "none",
            "riskLevelAggregated": "low",
            "riskLevelDuringSignIn": "low",
            "riskState": "none",
            "servicePrincipalCredentialKeyId": "2afc776a-4e79-4588-b2ad-f62c94d6bea8",
            "servicePrincipalId": "4b6986ec-c49c-40c0-89ce-b2ac51213e39",
            "servicePrincipalName": "very-normal-service-principal",
            "status": { "errorCode": 0 },
            "tokenIssuerType": "AzureAD",
            "uniqueTokenIdentifier": "CXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
          },
        "resourceid": "/tenants/60641ed1-32f7-4a2e-a912-d724c497e1e9/providers/Microsoft.aadiam",
        "resultsignature": "None",
        "resulttype": 0,
        "tenantid": "85e54ec3-85ee-4b03-9e3b-863075eb9b62",
        "time": "2023-07-27 14:00:41.848",
      }

Detection logic

Condition

operationName eq "Sign-in activity"
properties.status.errorCode gt "0"

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

Field	Kind	Values
`operationName`	eq	`Sign-in activity`
`properties.status.errorCode`	gt	`0`

`j` / `k`	Scroll down / up
`d` / `u`	Half-page down / up
`gg` / `G`	Top / bottom
`h` / `l`	History back / forward
`f`	Follow link (`Shift` = new tab)
`/`	Focus search
`?`	Toggle this help
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate search results
`Enter`	Open highlighted result
`Esc`	Close results / dialog

`type:`	`events` / `rules` / `providers`
`vendor:`	`sigma` / `elastic` / `splunk` / `kusto` / `chronicle` (vendor name alone also works: `sigma:`, `kql:`, `secops:`…)
`tactic:`	TA-id, slug, or name: `credential_access`, `TA0006`
`technique:`	technique or sub-technique ID: `T1003`, `T1003.001` (alias `tech:`)
`severity:`	`critical` / `high` / `medium` / `low` / `informational` (alias `sev:`)
`risk_score`	Numeric comparison on the Elastic risk score (0 to 100): `risk_score>50`, `risk_score<=20`, `risk_score=99` (alias `risk`; Elastic rules only)
`stages:`	Rules with exactly N pipeline stages
`correlation:`	`single_event` / `sequence` / `alternatives` / `alternatives_cross_log` / `all_required` / `correlated`
`with:`	Co-occurrence event-id; stacks (`with:4624 with:4769`) to require all, while a comma list in one occurrence (`with:4624,4769`) is an either-or group. Implies multi-event
`like:`	Structural neighbors of a rule slug (equivalents + subsumption stricter / broader): `like:comsvcs_lsass_memory_dump-splunk-sysmon`
`groupby:`	Entity-grouping substring match against `group_by_keys`: `groupby:user`, `groupby:host`
`uses:`	Rules whose predicate tree touches the field (any kind, any value): `uses:CommandLine`
`excludes:`	Rules with top-level `not()` clauses on the field (FP whitelists): `excludes:ParentImage`
`field:` / `value:`	Predicate search; narrows rule cards to those with a matching leaf and drives the indicator tier. Unquoted = substring, wildcards allowed (`value:mimikatz`)
`indicator:`	Shorthand for `field:F value:V`: `indicator:Image=*\powershell.exe`
`kind:`	Filter by predicate kind. Narrows rule cards to those carrying a matching predicate leaf (`vendor:elastic kind:cidr_match`) and drives the indicator tier: `contains` / `starts_with` / `ends_with` / `regex` / `cidr` / `eq` / `in` … (operator aliases `op:`/`match:`)
`has:` / `no:`	`sample`, `field`, `notes`, `refs`, `trace`, `thirdparty`, `rule`, `pattern`, `timewindow`, `threshold`, `newterms`, `sigma`/`elastic`/`splunk`/`kusto`/`chronicle`
`-op:val`	Exclude matches; works on most operators but not `type:`/`like:`/`has:`/`no:` (use `no:<flag>` to exclude a rule flag): `tactic:execution -vendor:splunk`. Standalone `-kind:`/`-field:`/`-value:` drop every rule carrying a matching predicate leaf (`type:rules -kind:is_null`)
`field:"…"` / `value:"…"`	Quoted value = anchored exact match (also allows spaces): `value:"net user"`
`a,b`	Comma = OR inside one operator (`vendor:sigma,elastic`, `severity:high,critical`); repeating a facet merges the same way. `field:`/`value:` never split (literal commas)
`vendors:` / `stage:`	Singular and plural spellings fold to the canonical operator and value: `tactics:` = `tactic:`, `type:event` = `type:events`, `correlation:sequences` = `correlation:sequence`, `has:thresholds` = `has:threshold`
`"quoted phrase"`	Exact-match a multi-word phrase (free text)