Suspicious Member Added to Privileged Directory Role in Entra ID

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1098.003Additional Cloud Roles
Priv Esc
- T1098.003Additional Cloud Roles
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects Entra ID audit events adding a member to a directory role such as Global Administrator. Wiz Research observed Midnight Blizzard elevating principals into privileged roles to broaden access, so unexpected role membership changes can indicate an account manipulation and privilege escalation attempt.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1098.003 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Assignment of a Privileged Azure AD Role (via auditlogs)

Suspicious Entra Cross-Tenant Access or External User Invitation via Azure Audit (via azure)

Suspicious Delegated Permission Grant to Entra Agent Access Scope via Azure Audit Logs

Suspicious IAM CreateLoginProfile For Root User via AWS AssumeRoot Abuse

Suspicious AWS IAM Privilege Escalation via AttachUserPolicy of Administrator Policy

Suspicious High-Privilege Microsoft Graph Application Role Grant via Azure Audit (via azure)

GCP Google Workspace: Application ContextAwareAccess Setting Changed

GitHub Audit: Outside Collaborator Membership and Permission Changes

Azure Audit Logs: Admin-initiated App Role Assignments and Privileged Delegated Permissions

Suspicious Member Added to Privileged Directory Role in Entra ID

Pivot detection · T1098.003 · 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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