Malicious OAuth app persistence
Apps or service principals created/hijacked with roles like full_access_as_app
categoryIdentity, authentication and credential attacksseverityHighdetectabilityHighlabnot yet measured
Example: Midnight Blizzard (2024)
Classification
27 values: 13 imported, 1 derived, 13 machine-classified. What do these mean?
Exploitability
| Attack vector | Credential attacks |
|---|---|
| Reach (CVSS) | Network |
| Attack complexity | Low |
| Privileges required | High |
| User interaction | None |
| Attacker skill required | Medium |
| Resources required | Low |
| Likelihood / prevalence | Medium |
| Maturity | Established |
Impact & scope
| Severity | High |
|---|---|
| Impact | ConfidentialityIntegrity |
| Platform | IaaSIdentity ProviderOffice SuiteSaaS |
| Environment | Cloud |
| Target asset class | Identity |
| Kill-chain phase (tactic) | PersistencePrivilege Escalation |
Detection & telemetry
| Detectability | High |
|---|---|
| Testability | Atomic Red Team test |
| Data sources (ATT&CK data components) | Active Directory Object CreationActive Directory Object ModificationApplication Log ContentCloud Service ModificationUser Account Modification |
Detection & response
Mitigated by 33
- M1018 attack-mitigation
- M1026 attack-mitigation
- M1030 attack-mitigation
- M1032 attack-mitigation
- M1042 attack-mitigation
- M1047 attack-mitigation
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Detected by 5
- DET0531 attack-detection-strategy
- DET0539 attack-detection-strategy
969c7590-8c19-4797-8c1b-23155de6e7acsigmacbb67ecc-fb70-4467-9350-c910bdf7c628sigmaeaa9ac35-1730-441f-9587-25767bde99d7sigma
Tested by 3
8822c3b0-d9f9-4daf-a043-491160a31122atomica12b5531-acab-4618-a470-0dafb294a87aatomicb8e747c3-bdf7-4d71-bce2-f1df2a057406atomic
Framework references
- Primary source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/01/25/midnight-blizzard-guidance-for-responders-on-nation-state-attack/
- attack: T1671 (primary)
- attack: T1098.001
Evidence & sources
- ev-0001 (Cyber Attack Taxonomy) — Name, definition and Example/ID taken verbatim from the 'Identity, authentication and credential attacks' table, line 352 of Cyber-Attack-Taxonomy.md
- ev-0002 (Seeded-record enrichment run 2026-09-30 (crosswalk + facet classification)) — Crosswalk to attack:T1671, attack:T1098.001 as the nearest framework entries; ids verified to exist in the cached catalogues.
- ev-0003 (MITRE Enterprise ATT&CK v19.2 (STIX 2.1)) — ATT&CK usage prevalence: 1 groups/software/campaigns reference this technique (ATT&CK enterprise v19.2)
- ev-0004 (MITRE Enterprise ATT&CK v19.2 (STIX 2.1)) — ATT&CK usage prevalence: 4 groups/software/campaigns reference this technique (ATT&CK enterprise v19.2)