O365 External Guest User Invited

Status: production
Severity: medium
Group by: aws::recipientAccountId, dest, signature, signature_id, src, user, vendor_product
Author: Steven Dick
Source: github.com/splunk/security_content

The following analytic identifies the invitation of an external guest user within Azure AD. With Azure AD B2B collaboration, users and administrators can invite external users to collaborate with internal users. External guest account invitations should be monitored by security teams as they could potentially lead to unauthorized access. An example of this attack vector was described at BlackHat 2022 by security researcher Dirk-Jan during his tall Backdooring and Hijacking Azure AD Accounts by Abusing External Identities. This detection leverages the Universal Audit Log (UAL)/o365:management:activity sourcetype as a detection data source.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Persistence	`T1136.003` Create Account: Cloud Account

Rule body splunk

name: O365 External Guest User Invited
id: 8c6d52ec-d5f2-4b2f-8ba1-f32c047a71fa
version: 9
creation_date: '2024-04-13'
modification_date: '2026-05-13'
author: Steven Dick
status: production
type: TTP
description: The following analytic identifies the invitation of an external guest user within Azure AD. With Azure AD B2B collaboration, users and administrators can invite external users to collaborate with internal users. External guest account invitations should be monitored by security teams as they could potentially lead to unauthorized access. An example of this attack vector was described at BlackHat 2022 by security researcher Dirk-Jan during his tall `Backdooring and Hijacking Azure AD Accounts by Abusing External Identities`. This detection leverages the Universal Audit Log (UAL)/o365:management:activity sourcetype as a detection data source.
data_source:
    - Office 365 Universal Audit Log
search: "`o365_management_activity` Workload=AzureActiveDirectory AND Operation=\"Add user*\" AND ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue=\"[*Guest*]\" AND ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue=\"[*Invitation*]\" | eval user = (mvindex('ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue',5)), src_user = case(match(mvindex('Actor{}.ID',-1),\"User\"),mvindex('Actor{}.ID',0),match(mvindex('Actor{}.ID',-1),\"ServicePrincipal\"),mvindex('Actor{}.ID',3),true(),mvindex('Actor{}.ID',0)) | rex field=user \"(?<user> [ \\w\\.-]+@ [ \\w-]+\\. [ \\w-]{2,4})\" | rename Operation as signature, Id as signature_id | fillnull | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by dest user src vendor_account vendor_product signature signature_id src_user | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` | `o365_external_guest_user_invited_filter`"
how_to_implement: You must install the Splunk Microsoft Office 365 Add-on and ingest Office 365 management activity events.
known_false_positives: Administrator may legitimately invite external guest users. Filter as needed.
references:
    - https://dirkjanm.io/assets/raw/US-22-Mollema-Backdooring-and-hijacking-Azure-AD-accounts_final.pdf
    - https://www.blackhat.com/us-22/briefings/schedule/#backdooring-and-hijacking-azure-ad-accounts-by-abusing-external-identities-26999
    - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1136/003/
    - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/external-identities/b2b-quickstart-add-guest-users-portal
drilldown_searches:
    - name: View the detection results for - "$user$" and "$src_user$"
      search: '%original_detection_search% | search  user = "$user$" src_user = "$src_user$"'
      earliest_offset: $info_min_time$
      latest_offset: $info_max_time$
    - name: View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$user$" and "$src_user$"
      search: '| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$user$", "$src_user$") | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(search_name) as "Search Name" values(risk_message) as "Risk Message" values(analyticstories) as "Analytic Stories" values(annotations._all) as "Annotations" values(annotations.mitre_attack.mitre_tactic) as "ATT&CK Tactics" by normalized_risk_object | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`'
      earliest_offset: 7d
      latest_offset: "0"
finding:
    title: Azure Guest User $user$ invited by $src_user$
    entity:
        field: src_user
        type: user
        score: 50
intermediate_findings:
    entities:
        - field: user
          type: user
          score: 50
          message: Azure Guest User $user$ invited by $src_user$
analytic_story:
    - Azure Active Directory Persistence
asset_type: O365 Tenant
mitre_attack_id:
    - T1136.003
product:
    - Splunk Enterprise
    - Splunk Enterprise Security
    - Splunk Cloud
category: cloud
security_domain: identity
tests:
    - name: True Positive Test
      attack_data:
        - data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1098/o365_azure_workload_events/o365_azure_workload_events.log
          sourcetype: o365:management:activity
          source: o365
      test_type: unit

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: `search`

`o365_management_activity` Workload=AzureActiveDirectory AND Operation="Add user*" AND ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue="[*Guest*]" AND ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue="[*Invitation*]"

Stage 2: `eval`

| eval user = (mvindex('ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue',5)), src_user = case(match(mvindex('Actor{}.ID',-1),"User"),mvindex('Actor{}.ID',0),match(mvindex('Actor{}.ID',-1),"ServicePrincipal"),mvindex('Actor{}.ID',3),true(),mvindex('Actor{}.ID',0))

src_user =

ifmatch(mvindex('Actor{}.ID', -1), "User")mvindex('Actor{}.ID', 0)

elifmatch(mvindex('Actor{}.ID', -1), "ServicePrincipal")mvindex('Actor{}.ID', 3)

elsemvindex('Actor{}.ID', 0)

Stage 3: `rex`

| rex field=user "(?<user> [ \w\.-]+@ [ \w-]+\. [ \w-]{2,4})"

Stage 4: `rename`

| rename Operation as signature, Id as signature_id

Stage 5: `fillnull`

| fillnull

Stage 6: `stats`

| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by dest user src vendor_account vendor_product signature signature_id src_user

Stage 7: `search`

| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`

Stage 8: `search`

| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`

Stage 9: `search`

| `o365_external_guest_user_invited_filter`

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
`ModifiedProperties{}.NewValue`	eq	`"[Guest]"` `"[Invitation]"`
`Operation`	eq	`"Add user*"`
`Workload`	eq	`AzureActiveDirectory`
`sourcetype`	eq	`o365:management:activity`

`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)

O365 External Guest User Invited

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Rule body splunk

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: `search`

Stage 2: `eval`

Stage 3: `rex`

Stage 4: `rename`

Stage 5: `fillnull`

Stage 6: `stats`

Stage 7: `search`

Stage 8: `search`

Stage 9: `search`

Indicators

Keyboard shortcuts

Search operators

O365 External Guest User Invited

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Rule body splunk

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

Stage 2: eval

Stage 3: rex

Stage 4: rename

Stage 5: fillnull

Stage 6: stats

Stage 7: search

Stage 8: search

Stage 9: search

Indicators

Stage 1: `search`

Stage 2: `eval`

Stage 3: `rex`

Stage 4: `rename`

Stage 5: `fillnull`

Stage 6: `stats`

Stage 7: `search`

Stage 8: `search`

Stage 9: `search`