Detect Cloud Groups in Google Chronicle
Adversaries may attempt to find cloud groups and permission settings to understand role assignments, privilege levels, and group memberships within a cloud environment. Tools such as Get-MsolRole (Office 365), az ad user get-member-groups (Azure CLI), ROADTools, AADInternals, and Pacu are used to enumerate cloud identity groups. In AWS, ListRolePolicies and ListAttachedRolePolicies enumerate role policies. Adversaries use this information to identify privileged accounts, determine lateral movement paths, and select targets for privilege escalation.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Discovery
- Technique
- T1069 Permission Groups Discovery
- Sub-technique
- T1069.003 Cloud Groups
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1069/003/
YARA-L Detection Query
rule cloud_group_enumeration_t1069_003 {
meta:
author = "Argus Detection Engineering"
description = "Detects cloud identity group and role enumeration (MITRE ATT&CK T1069.003) via Azure AD audit operations or endpoint-based PowerShell and CLI cmdlet execution"
severity = "MEDIUM"
priority = "MEDIUM"
mitre_attack_tactic = "Discovery"
mitre_attack_technique = "T1069.003"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1069/003/"
version = "1.0"
created = "2026-04-17"
events:
(
$e.metadata.event_type = "USER_RESOURCE_ACCESS" and
re.regex($e.metadata.product_name, `(?i)Azure Active Directory|Microsoft 365|Office 365`) and
re.regex($e.metadata.event_name,
`(?i)(list group members|list groups|get group|list directory roles|list directory role members|list role assignments|get role assignment|Member\.Read\.All|Group\.Read\.All)`) and
$e.security_result.action = "ALLOW"
)
or
(
$e.metadata.event_type = "PROCESS_LAUNCH" and
re.regex($e.target.process.file.full_path,
`(?i)(powershell\.exe|pwsh\.exe|az\.cmd|az\.exe)$`) and
re.regex($e.target.process.command_line,
`(?i)(Get-MsolRole|Get-MsolRoleMember|Get-AzureADGroup|Get-AzureADGroupMember|Get-AzureADDirectoryRole|Get-AzureADDirectoryRoleMember|Get-MgGroup|Get-MgGroupMember|Get-MgDirectoryRole|Get-MgDirectoryRoleMember|Get-MsolGroupMember|Get-AzRoleAssignment|Get-AzADGroup|az\s+ad\s+group|az\s+ad\s+user\s+get-member-groups|az\s+role\s+assignment\s+list|ListRolePolicies|ListAttachedRolePolicies|ListGroupPolicies|roadrecon|roadtools|aadinternals|invoke-aadintrecon|azurehound|stormspotter|pacu)`)
)
condition:
$e
}Chronicle YARA-L 2.0 rule detecting cloud group and role enumeration (T1069.003). Fires on two UDM event types: USER_RESOURCE_ACCESS events from Azure AD or M365 audit pipelines where the event name matches group or role read operations with an ALLOW outcome, and PROCESS_LAUNCH events where PowerShell or az CLI command lines contain known enumeration cmdlets from the MSOnline, AzureAD, Microsoft.Graph, or Az PowerShell modules, or known offensive tools including ROADrecon, AADInternals, AzureHound, Stormspotter, and Pacu.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- Privileged Identity Management (PIM) access review workflows that enumerate group memberships and role assignments to generate review tasks for approvers
- IT administrators running Get-AzureADGroup or Get-MgGroup cmdlets interactively in PowerShell sessions during routine group management operations
- Azure AD monitoring or identity security tooling that reads group and directory role data continuously to detect shadow admins or excessive permissions
Other platforms for T1069.003
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 4 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Enumerate Azure AD Groups via MSOnline PowerShell Module
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: PowerShell process creation with CommandLine containing 'Get-MsolRole' and 'Get-MsolRoleMember'. PowerShell ScriptBlock Log Event ID 4104 with full script content. Azure AD Audit Logs: 'List directory roles' and 'List directory role members' operations attributed to the authenticated user. Sysmon Event ID 3: Outbound network connections to login.microsoftonline.com and graph.windows.net.
- Test 2Enumerate Azure AD Groups via Azure CLI
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: az.cmd process creation with CommandLine containing 'ad group list', 'ad user get-member-groups', 'role assignment list'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Network connections to management.azure.com and graph.microsoft.com. Azure AD Audit Logs: 'List groups', 'List role assignments' operations. File creation events (Sysmon ID 11) for output files in TEMP directory.
- Test 3Enumerate AWS IAM Role Policies via AWS CLI
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: PowerShell and aws.exe process creation events with CommandLine containing 'list-roles', 'list-role-policies', 'list-attached-role-policies', 'list-groups'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Outbound connections to iam.amazonaws.com (port 443). File creation events for output files. AWS CloudTrail: ListRoles, ListRolePolicies, ListAttachedRolePolicies, ListGroups API calls attributed to the IAM principal.
- Test 4Enumerate Azure AD Groups using Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: PowerShell process with CommandLine containing 'Get-MgGroup', 'Get-MgDirectoryRole', 'Get-MgDirectoryRoleMember'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Outbound connections to graph.microsoft.com (port 443). PowerShell ScriptBlock Log Event ID 4104. Azure AD Audit Logs: 'List groups', 'List directory roles', 'List directory role members' operations. Sysmon Event ID 11: CSV file creation in TEMP directory.
References (13)
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1069/003/
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/msonline/get-msolrole?view=azureadps-1.0
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/ad/user?view=azure-cli-latest
- https://cloud.google.com/identity/docs/reference/rest
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/API_GetBucketAcl.html
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/compromised-cloud-compute-credentials/
- https://www.blackhillsinfosec.com/red-teaming-microsoft-part-1-active-directory-leaks-via-azure/
- https://github.com/dirkjanm/ROADtools
- https://o365blog.com/post/aadinternals/
- https://github.com/RhinoSecurityLabs/pacu
- https://github.com/BloodHoundAD/AzureHound
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/reports-monitoring/concept-audit-logs
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/group-list-members
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