Suspicious Entra Device Code Authentication with Office Client and Automated User Agent

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
- T1566.002Spearphishing Link
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1550.001Application Access Token
Cred Access
- T1528Steal Application Access Token
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1550.001Application Access Token
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects Entra ID sign-ins using the device code authentication flow against the Microsoft Office client application from an automated python-requests user agent, matching the Kali365 device code phishing ecosystem. Adversaries phish device codes to obtain refresh tokens for the well-known Office client and replay them programmatically to access mailboxes. Device code flow paired with a scripted user agent is a strong indicator of token theft and mailbox compromise.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1528 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Windows Script Host Execution of JavaScript from Temporary Archive Extraction Folder (via process_creation)

Suspicious Google Workspace OAuth Authorization for Chrome Web Store Scope via Token Audit

Suspicious Federated Identity Credential On-Behalf-Of Token Flow via Sign-In Logs

Suspicious Salesforce Bulk API Export via aiohttp User Agent

Suspicious Entra Device Code Authentication with Office Client and Automated User Agent

Pivot detection · T1528 · 9 related

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

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