Unusual volumes of secret, certificate, or key exports from Azure Key Vault within a short time period.
A new type of credential was accessed from within the Key Vault, which is unusual for the identity.
Key Vault objects are accessed by accounts or service principals that have not previously accessed these resources.
Possible Root Causes
Unauthorized Access: An attacker may have gained access to a privileged account and is extracting secrets or keys from Key Vault.
Backup or Compliance Processes: Scripts or tools may be extracting secrets or certificates as part of backup operations or regulatory compliance requirements.
Security or Compliance Testing: Security teams or compliance audits may involve accessing multiple Key Vault items for validation.
Business Impact
Exposed secrets or certificates may allow attackers to impersonate trusted services.
Stolen credentials could enable lateral movement or privilege escalation within the cloud environment.
Potential significant financial impact if extracted keys or secrets are used to deploy or manipulate resources.
Steps to Verify
Analyze Key Vault Logs: Check access patterns to secrets, certificates, or keys, focusing on frequency, timing, and source IP addresses.
Investigate Account Behavior: Verify if the accessing account or service principal is exhibiting unusual activity and ensure that Key Vault permissions have not been recently modified.
If Malicious Actions Are Suspected:
Change or disable affected secrets, certificates, or keys to prevent further unauthorized use.
Implement temporary network restrictions for unusual IPs or regions involved in the suspicious activity.
Review the Key Vault for any additional unauthorized activities and ensure that security policies are properly enforced.
Notify security teams and document the event in the incident management system for tracking and follow-up actions.
Azure Suspicious Key Vault Extraction
Possible root causes
Malicious Detection
Benign Detection
Azure Suspicious Key Vault Extraction
Example scenarios
Azure Suspicious Key Vault Extraction
Business impact
If this detection indicates a genuine threat, the organization faces significant risks:
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