Okta Admin Role Assigned

Severity: informational
Group by: debugContext.debugData.requestId
Log types: Okta.SystemLog
Tags: Identity & Access Management, Okta, Privilege Escalation:Valid Accounts
Reference: https://help.okta.com/en/prod/Content/Topics/Security/administrators-admin-comparison.htm
Source: github.com/panther-labs/panther-analysis

A user has been granted administrative privileges in Okta

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Privilege Escalation	`T1078` Valid Accounts

Rules detecting the same action

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

High-Risk Admin Activity (Kusto)
Okta Admin Access Granted (Panther)
Okta Admin Role Assigned to an User or Group (Sigma)
Okta User Assigned Administrator Role (Elastic)

Rule body yaml

AnalysisType: rule
Filename: okta_admin_role_assigned.py
RuleID: "Okta.AdminRoleAssigned"
DisplayName: "Okta Admin Role Assigned"
Enabled: true
LogTypes:
  - Okta.SystemLog
Tags:
  - Identity & Access Management
  - Okta
  - Privilege Escalation:Valid Accounts
Reports:
  MITRE ATT&CK:
    - TA0004:T1078
Severity: Info
Description: A user has been granted administrative privileges in Okta
Reference: https://help.okta.com/en/prod/Content/Topics/Security/administrators-admin-comparison.htm
Runbook: Reach out to the user if needed to validate the activity
DedupPeriodMinutes: 15
SummaryAttributes:
  - eventType
  - severity
  - displayMessage
  - p_any_ip_addresses
Tests:
  - Name: Admin Access Assigned
    ExpectedResult: true
    Log:
      {
        "uuid": "2a992f80-d1ad-4f62-900e-8c68bb72a21b",
        "published": "2020-11-25 21:27:03.496000000",
        "eventType": "user.account.privilege.grant",
        "version": "0",
        "severity": "INFO",
        "legacyEventType": "core.user.admin_privilege.granted",
        "displayMessage": "Grant user privilege",
        "actor":
          {
            "id": "00uu1uuuuIlllaaaa356",
            "type": "User",
            "alternateId": "jack@acme.io",
            "displayName": "Jack Naglieri",
          },
        "client":
          {
            "userAgent":
              {
                "browser": "CHROME",
                "os": "Mac OS X",
                "rawUserAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/86.0.4240.198 Safari/537.36",
              },
            "geographicalContext":
              {
                "geolocation": { "lat": 37.7852, "lon": -122.3874 },
                "city": "San Francisco",
                "state": "California",
                "country": "United States",
                "postalCode": "94105",
              },
            "zone": "null",
            "ipAddress": "136.24.229.58",
            "device": "Computer",
          },
        "request": {},
        "outcome": { "result": "SUCCESS" },
        "target":
          [
            {
              "id": "00u6eup97mAJZWYmP357",
              "type": "User",
              "alternateId": "alice@acme.io",
              "displayName": "Alice Green",
            },
          ],
        "transaction": {},
        "debugContext":
          {
            "debugData":
              {
                "privilegeGranted": "Organization administrator, Application administrator (all)",
                "requestUri": "/api/internal/administrators/00u6eu8c68bb72a21b57",
                "threatSuspected": "false",
                "url": "/api/internal/administrators/00u6eu8c68bb72a21b57",
                "requestId": "X777JJ9sssQQHHrrrQTyYQAABBE",
              },
          },
        "authenticationContext": {},
        "securityContext": {},
      }
  - Name: Super Admin Access Assigned (High sev)
    ExpectedResult: true
    Log:
      {
        "uuid": "2a992f80-d1ad-4f62-900e-8c68bb72a21b",
        "published": "2020-11-25 21:27:03.496000000",
        "eventType": "user.account.privilege.grant",
        "version": "0",
        "severity": "INFO",
        "legacyEventType": "core.user.admin_privilege.granted",
        "displayMessage": "Grant user privilege",
        "actor":
          {
            "id": "00uu1uuuuIlllaaaa356",
            "type": "User",
            "alternateId": "jack@acme.io",
            "displayName": "Jack Naglieri",
          },
        "client":
          {
            "userAgent":
              {
                "browser": "CHROME",
                "os": "Mac OS X",
                "rawUserAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/86.0.4240.198 Safari/537.36",
              },
            "geographicalContext":
              {
                "geolocation": { "lat": 37.7852, "lon": -122.3874 },
                "city": "San Francisco",
                "state": "California",
                "country": "United States",
                "postalCode": "94105",
              },
            "zone": "null",
            "ipAddress": "136.24.229.58",
            "device": "Computer",
          },
        "request": {},
        "outcome": { "result": "SUCCESS" },
        "target":
          [
            {
              "id": "00u6eup97mAJZWYmP357",
              "type": "User",
              "alternateId": "alice@acme.io",
              "displayName": "Alice Green",
            },
          ],
        "transaction": {},
        "debugContext":
          {
            "debugData":
              {
                "privilegeGranted": "Super administrator, Read only admin",
                "requestUri": "/api/internal/administrators/00u6eu8c68bb72a21b57",
                "threatSuspected": "false",
                "url": "/api/internal/administrators/00u6eu8c68bb72a21b57",
                "requestId": "X777JJ9sssQQHHrrrQTyYQAABBE",
              },
          },
        "authenticationContext": {},
        "securityContext": {},
      }

Detection logic

Condition

eventType eq "user.account.privilege.grant"
outcome.result eq "SUCCESS"

This rule also runs imperative logic the parser cannot express as a filter; the conditions above are the structured part it could extract.

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
`eventType`	eq	`user.account.privilege.grant`
`outcome.result`	eq	`SUCCESS`

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
`event_type`	`eventtype`
`severity`
`actor`
`client`
`request`
`outcome`
`target`
`debug_context`	`debugcontext`
`authentication_context`	`authenticationcontext`
`security_context`	`securitycontext`
`ips`	`p_any_ip_addresses`
`displayName`	`actor.displayName`
`alternateId`	`actor.alternateId`
`privilegeGranted`	`debugContext.debugData.privilegeGranted`

`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)