Azure AD: Application Owner Added via Audit Log Message

Detects when an application owner is added in Azure audit logs, granting additional permissions to modify app configuration.

FreeReviewedSigma · Medium · v5
Product
azure
Service
auditlogs
Author
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Bailey Bercik '@baileybercik' (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published
2022-06-02
Updated
2026-07-31

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule flags audit log events where an application owner is added, identified by the message text "Add owner to application". Granting an owner role can enable the new account to modify application configuration, increasing attacker persistence and privilege within the tenant. It relies on Azure audit log telemetry capturing the specific operation message for owner changes.

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Azure AD: Application Owner Added via Audit Log Message
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Changelog

v5
  1. v5
    Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
  2. v4
    Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
  3. v3
    Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
  4. v2
    Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
  5. v1
    No changelog recorded for this version.2026-07-30

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.