Azure VS Code OAuth Phishing

Status: Experimental
Severity: medium
Log types: Azure.Audit
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/conditional-access/concept-token-protection
Source: github.com/panther-labs/panther-analysis

Detects OAuth authorization flows where Visual Studio Code successfully authenticates to Microsoft Graph. While legitimate for developers, this pattern is commonly abused in phishing campaigns where attackers use the trusted VS Code client ID to trick users into granting OAuth tokens.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Initial Access	`T1566` Phishing
Credential Access	`T1528` Steal Application Access Token

Rule body yaml

AnalysisType: rule
Filename: azure_vscode_oauth_phishing.py
RuleID: "Azure.Audit.VSCodeOAuthPhishing"
DisplayName: "Azure VS Code OAuth Phishing"
Enabled: true
Status: Experimental
LogTypes:
  - Azure.Audit
Severity: Medium
Description: >
  Detects OAuth authorization flows where Visual Studio Code successfully authenticates to
  Microsoft Graph. While legitimate for developers, this pattern is commonly abused in
  phishing campaigns where attackers use the trusted VS Code client ID to trick users into
  granting OAuth tokens.
Reports:
  MITRE ATT&CK:
    - TA0001:T1566
    - TA0006:T1528
Runbook: |
  1. Query Azure.Audit sign-in logs for all VS Code OAuth events by properties:userPrincipalName in the 24 hours before and after the alert to identify usage patterns
  2. Check if callerIpAddress is associated with known VPN services or matches the user's typical geographic locations and corporate network ranges
  3. Find other OAuth consent grants or application authentications for this user in the past 7 days to determine if multiple suspicious OAuth flows are occurring
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/conditional-access/concept-token-protection
SummaryAttributes:
  - properties:userPrincipalName
  - callerIpAddress
  - properties:appDisplayName
  - properties:resourceDisplayName
  - properties:userAgent
Tests:
  - Name: VS Code to Microsoft Graph
    ExpectedResult: true
    Log:
      {
        "callerIpAddress": "9.9.9.9",
        "category": "NonInteractiveUserSignInLogs",
        "correlationId": "vscode-123-456-789",
        "durationMs": 200,
        "Level": "4",
        "location": "US",
        "operationName": "Sign-in activity",
        "operationVersion": "1.0",
        "p_event_time": "2025-01-15 14:30:25.123",
        "p_log_type": "Azure.Audit",
        "properties":
          {
            "userId": "user-abc-123",
            "userPrincipalName": "sam@lotr.com",
            "appId": "aebc6443-996d-45c2-90f0-388ff96faa56",
            "appDisplayName": "Visual Studio Code",
            "authenticationProtocol": "oAuth2",
            "conditionalAccessStatus": "notApplied",
            "correlationId": "vscode-123-456-789",
            "createdDateTime": "2025-01-15T14:30:25.1234567Z",
            "ipAddress": "9.9.9.9",
            "isInteractive": false,
            "location":
              {
                "city": "Seattle",
                "countryOrRegion": "US",
                "geoCoordinates": { "latitude": 47.6062, "longitude": -122.3321 },
                "state": "Washington",
              },
            "resourceDisplayName": "Microsoft Graph",
            "resourceId": "00000003-0000-0000-c000-111111111111",
            "status": { "errorCode": 0 },
            "tokenIssuerType": "AzureAD",
            "clientAppUsed": "Mobile Apps and Desktop clients",
            "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Visual Studio Code/1.75.0 Chrome/102.0.5005.167 Electron/19.1.9 Safari/537.36",
          },
        "resourceId": "/tenants/tenant-123/providers/Microsoft.aadiam",
        "resultSignature": "SUCCESS",
        "resultType": "0",
        "tenantId": "tenant-123",
        "time": "2025-01-15 14:30:25.123",
      }
  - Name: VS Code to Different Resource
    ExpectedResult: false
    Log:
      {
        "callerIpAddress": "1.2.3.4",
        "category": "NonInteractiveUserSignInLogs",
        "correlationId": "vscode-345-678-901",
        "durationMs": 120,
        "Level": "4",
        "location": "US",
        "operationName": "Sign-in activity",
        "operationVersion": "1.0",
        "p_event_time": "2025-01-15 16:20:35.789",
        "p_log_type": "Azure.Audit",
        "properties":
          {
            "userId": "user-ghi-789",
            "userPrincipalName": "dyoung@lotr.com",
            "appId": "aebc6443-996d-45c2-90f0-388ff96faa56",
            "appDisplayName": "Visual Studio Code",
            "authenticationProtocol": "oAuth2",
            "conditionalAccessStatus": "notApplied",
            "correlationId": "vscode-345-678-901",
            "createdDateTime": "2025-01-15T16:20:35.7890123Z",
            "ipAddress": "1.2.3.4",
            "isInteractive": false,
            "resourceDisplayName": "Azure DevOps",
            "resourceId": "499b84ac-1321-427f-aa17-267ca6975798",
            "status": { "errorCode": 0 },
            "tokenIssuerType": "AzureAD",
            "clientAppUsed": "Mobile Apps and Desktop clients",
          },
        "resourceId": "/tenants/tenant-789/providers/Microsoft.aadiam",
        "resultSignature": "SUCCESS",
        "resultType": "0",
        "tenantId": "tenant-789",
        "time": "2025-01-15 16:20:35.789",
      }

Detection logic

Condition

not (operationName ne "Sign-in activity" or resultSignature ne "SUCCESS")
properties.appId eq "aebc6443-996d-45c2-90f0-388ff96faa56" or properties.userAgent contains "visual studio code"
properties.resourceId eq "00000003-0000-0000-c000-000000000000" or properties.resourceDisplayName contains "microsoft graph"

Exclusions

Top-level NOT(...) conjuncts: predicates this rule actively suppresses.

Field	Kind	Excluded values
`operationName`	ne	`Sign-in activity`
`resultSignature`	ne	`SUCCESS`

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
`properties.appId`	eq	`aebc6443-996d-45c2-90f0-388ff96faa56`
`properties.resourceDisplayName`	contains	`microsoft graph`
`properties.resourceId`	eq	`00000003-0000-0000-c000-000000000000`
`properties.userAgent`	contains	`visual studio code`

Output fields

Fields the rule emits when it matches. Chronicle authors list these in the outcome block; they appear on the detection and $risk_score drives alerting. Sentinel / Defender XDR rules build them up through project / summarize / extend stages. Sentinel maps these into alert fields via entityMappings and customDetails; Defender XDR custom detections surface them as alert fields directly.

Field	Source
`ipAddress`	`properties.ipAddress`

`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)