An adversary may disable or modify cloud logging capabilities and integrations to limit what data is collected on their activities and avoid detection. Cloud environments allow for collection and analysis of audit and application logs that provide insight into what activities a user does within the environment. If an adversary has sufficient permissions, they can disable or modify logging to avoid detection of their activities.
For example, in AWS an adversary may disable CloudWatch/CloudTrail integrations prior to conducting further malicious activity.(Citation: Following the CloudTrail: Generating strong AWS security signals with Sumo Logic) They may alternatively tamper with logging functionality – for example, by removing any associated SNS topics, disabling multi-region logging, or disabling settings that validate and/or encrypt log files.(Citation: AWS Update Trail)(Citation: Pacu Detection Disruption Module) In Office 365, an adversary may disable logging on mail collection activities for specific users by using the Set-MailboxAuditBypassAssociation cmdlet, by disabling M365 Advanced Auditing for the user, or by downgrading the user’s license from an Enterprise E5 to an Enterprise E3 license.(Citation: Dark Reading Microsoft 365 Attacks 2021)
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CM-03 | Configuration Change Control | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs | |
| AC-03 | Access Enforcement | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs | |
| AC-05 | Separation of Duties | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs | |
| AC-06 | Least Privilege | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs | |
| CM-05 | Access Restrictions for Change | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs | |
| IA-02 | Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs | |
| AC-02 | Account Management | Protects | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PUR-AS-E5 | Audit Solutions | Technique Scores | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
Comments
Microsoft Purview auditing solutions provide an integrated solution to help organizations effectively respond to security events, forensic investigations, internal investigations, and compliance obligations. Thousands of user and admin operations performed in dozens of Microsoft 365 services and solutions are captured, recorded, and retained in your organization's unified audit log. Audit records for these events are searchable by security ops, IT admins, insider risk teams, and compliance and legal investigators in your organization. This capability provides visibility into the activities performed across your Microsoft 365 organization.
Microsoft's Audit Solutions detects Disable or Modify Cloud Log attacks due to the user administration Audit Log activities which monitors for changes to account settings associated with users that may impact defensive logging capabilities.
License Requirements:
Microsoft 365 E3 and E5
References
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| ME-RBAC-E3 | Role Based Access Control | Technique Scores | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
Comments
The RBAC control can be used to implement the principle of least privilege to limit users with permission to modify logging policies to those required. This scores Partial for its ability to minimize the overall accounts with the ability to modify cloud logging capabilities.
License Requirements:
ME-ID Built-in Roles (Free)
References
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| DEF-SecScore-E3 | Secure Score | Technique Scores | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
Comments
Microsoft Secure Score is a measurement of an organization's security posture, with a higher number indicating more recommended actions taken. It can be found at Microsoft Secure Score in the Microsoft Defender portal.
Following the Secure Score recommendations can protect your organization from threats. From a centralized dashboard in the Microsoft Defender portal, organizations can monitor and work on the security of their Microsoft 365 identities, apps, and devices. Your score is updated in real time to reflect the information presented in the visualizations and recommended action pages. Secure Score also syncs daily to receive system data about your achieved points for each action.
To help you find the information you need more quickly, Microsoft recommended actions are organized into groups:
Identity (Microsoft Entra accounts & roles)
Device (Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, known as Microsoft Secure Score for Devices)
Apps (email and cloud apps, including Office 365 and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps)
Data (through Microsoft Information Protection)
References
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| DEF-IR-E5 | Incident Response | Technique Scores | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
Comments
An incident in Microsoft Defender XDR is a collection of correlated alerts and associated data that make up the story of an attack. Microsoft 365 services and apps create alerts when they detect a suspicious or malicious event or activity. Individual alerts provide valuable clues about a completed or ongoing attack. Attacks typically employ various techniques against different types of entities, such as devices, users, and mailboxes. The result of this is multiple alerts for multiple entities in your tenant. Piecing the individual alerts together to gain insight into an attack can be challenging and time-consuming, Microsoft Defender XDR automatically aggregates the alerts and their associated information into an incident. A typical Incident Response workflow in Microsoft Defender XDR begins with a triage action, next is the investigate action, and finally is the response action.
Microsoft 365 Defender Incident Response responds to Disable or Modify Cloud Log attacks due to Incident Response monitoring for changes to account settings and logs for API calls to disable logging.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender XDR
References
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| DO365-AG-E5 | App Governance | Technique Scores | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
Comments
App governance in Defender for Cloud Apps is a set of security and policy management capabilities designed for OAuth-enabled apps registered on Microsoft Entra ID, Google, and Salesforce. App governance delivers visibility, remediation, and governance into how these apps and their users access, use, and share sensitive data in Microsoft 365 and other cloud platforms through actionable insights and automated policy alerts and actions. App governance also enables you to see which user-installed OAuth applications have access to data on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. It tells you what permissions the apps have and which users have granted access to their accounts. App governance insights enable you to make informed decisions around blocking or restricting apps that present significant risk to your organization
App Governance Detects Disable or Modify Cloud Log attacks due to App Governance tracking various app attributes and behaviors such as certification, data use, API access errors, and unused permissions that can indicate misuse and risk.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
References
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| DO365-ATH-E5 | Advanced Threat Hunting | Technique Scores | T1562.008 | Disable or Modify Cloud Logs |
Comments
Advanced hunting is a query-based threat hunting tool that lets you explore up to 30 days of raw data. Advanced hunting in Microsoft Defender XDR allows you to proactively hunt for threats across: Devices managed by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Emails processed by Microsoft 365, Cloud app activities, authentication events, and domain controller activities. With this level of visibility, you can quickly hunt for threats that traverse sections of your network, including sophisticated intrusions that arrive on email or the web, elevate local privileges, acquire privileged domain credentials, and move laterally to across your devices. Advanced hunting supports two modes, guided and advanced. Users use advanced mode if they are comfortable using Kusto Query Language (KQL) to create queries from scratch.
Advanced Threat Hunting Detects Disabling or Modifying Cloud Log attacks due to the DeviceNetworkEvents table in the advanced hunting schema which contains information about network connections and related events which monitors logs for API calls to disable logging.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 plan 2
References
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