Azure AuditLogs: Privileged role assignment to user access admin

Flags Azure AuditLogs events where a user is assigned to User Access Administrator, enabling full subscription management.

FreeReviewedSigma · High · v5

Product: azure
Service: auditlogs
Author: Austin Songer @austinsonger (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published: 2021-11-26
Updated: 2026-07-31

Analysis Detection

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
- T1078Valid Accounts
Execution
Persistence
- T1078Valid Accounts
Priv Esc
- T1078Valid Accounts
Defense Evasion
- T1078Valid Accounts
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule flags an Azure AuditLogs event where the caller is assigned to the "user access admin" role, enabling management of Azure subscriptions. Permission elevation like this can be used by an attacker to gain broad administrative access for persistence or further actions across the tenant. Detection relies on AuditLogs entries capturing the category "Administrative" and the specific operation name "Assigns the caller to user access admin".

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1078 — drag to rearrange

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Azure AuditLogs: Privileged role assignment to user access admin

Pivot detection · T1078 · 9 related

Changelog

v5
Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
v4
Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
v3
Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
v2
Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
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.

azure-auditlogs-permission-elevation-to-user-access-administrator-for-subscripti-ca9bf243

title: "Azure AuditLogs: Privileged role assignment to user access admin"
id: e2bcddb3-cc7a-40db-8130-8b7be794a2a9
status: test
description: This rule flags an Azure AuditLogs event where the caller is assigned to the "user access admin" role, enabling management of Azure subscriptions. Permission elevation like this can be used by an attacker to gain broad administrative access for persistence or further actions across the tenant. Detection relies on AuditLogs entries capturing the category "Administrative" and the specific operation name "Assigns the caller to user access admin".
references:
  - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/architecture/security-operations-privileged-accounts#assignment-and-elevation
  - https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/master/rules/cloud/azure/audit_logs/azure_subscription_permissions_elevation_via_auditlogs.yml
author: Austin Songer @austinsonger, Huntrule Team
date: 2021-11-26
modified: 2022-12-25
tags:
  - attack.privilege-escalation
  - attack.persistence
  - attack.initial-access
  - attack.stealth
  - attack.t1078
logsource:
  product: azure
  service: auditlogs
detection:
  selection:
    Category: Administrative
    OperationName: Assigns the caller to user access admin
  condition: selection
falsepositives:
  - If this was approved by System Administrator.
level: high
license: DRL-1.1
related:
  - id: ca9bf243-465e-494a-9e54-bf9fc239057d
    type: derived

Convert

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