Azure AD PIM Redundant Assignment Alert When Privileged Role Not Used

Alerts on Azure PIM redundant privileged role assignments where the assigned role appears unused.

FreeReviewedSigma · High · v5

Product: azure
Service: pim
Author: Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Gloria Lee, '@gleeiamglo' (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published: 2023-09-14
Updated: 2026-07-31

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 matches a privileged identity management risk event indicating a redundant assignment alert incident, where a user has been assigned a privilege role but is not using it. Attackers may exploit unused privileged access as a persistence or privilege-escalation opportunity, since dormant permissions can remain available longer than intended. The detection relies on Azure PIM telemetry reporting a riskEventType of redundantAssignmentAlertIncident.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1078 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious SonicWall NetExtender VPN Command-Line Authentication with Always-Trust (via process_creation)

Suspicious Self-Hosted GitHub Actions Runner Started As Root via Shell (via process_creation)

Suspicious Login Shell Assigned to Service Account games on Linux

Suspicious SSH Daemon Configuration Change Enabling Root Login

Suspicious NTLM Network Logon From Attacker Controlled Workstation Names (via security)

Suspicious dMSA Object Access with Migration AccessMask

Malicious ESX Admins Group Added to Privileged Directory Group

Malicious ESX Admins Group Creation via WinRM Host

Suspicious BrightMetricAgent Remote Tool Execution Associated With Volt Typhoon

Azure AD PIM Redundant Assignment Alert When Privileged Role Not Used

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-pim-redundant-privileged-role-assignments-not-being-used-8c6ec464

title: Azure AD PIM Redundant Assignment Alert When Privileged Role Not Used
id: 0a5fb671-898f-4ba0-a57f-d5eedbd1a5e7
status: test
description: This rule matches a privileged identity management risk event indicating a redundant assignment alert incident, where a user has been assigned a privilege role but is not using it. Attackers may exploit unused privileged access as a persistence or privilege-escalation opportunity, since dormant permissions can remain available longer than intended. The detection relies on Azure PIM telemetry reporting a riskEventType of redundantAssignmentAlertIncident.
references:
  - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/id-governance/privileged-identity-management/pim-how-to-configure-security-alerts#administrators-arent-using-their-privileged-roles
  - https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/master/rules/cloud/azure/privileged_identity_management/azure_pim_role_not_used.yml
author: Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Gloria Lee, '@gleeiamglo', Huntrule Team
date: 2023-09-14
tags:
  - attack.initial-access
  - attack.stealth
  - attack.t1078
  - attack.persistence
  - attack.privilege-escalation
logsource:
  product: azure
  service: pim
detection:
  selection:
    riskEventType: redundantAssignmentAlertIncident
  condition: selection
falsepositives:
  - Investigate if potential generic account that cannot be removed.
level: high
license: DRL-1.1
related:
  - id: 8c6ec464-4ae4-43ac-936a-291da66ed13d
    type: derived

Convert

This rule as a query you can run. Uses no unlock credit.

SplunkSPL