MFA Disabled for Google Workspace Organizationedit

Detects when multi-factor authentication (MFA) is disabled for a Google Workspace organization. An adversary may attempt to modify a password policy in order to weaken an organization’s security controls.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

  • filebeat-*
  • logs-google_workspace*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 10 minutes

Searches indices from: now-130m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Cloud
  • Google Workspace
  • Continuous Monitoring
  • SecOps
  • Identity and Access

Version: 13 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.3.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positivesedit

MFA settings may be modified by system administrators. Verify that the configuration change was expected. Exceptions can be added to this rule to filter expected behavior.

Investigation guideedit

## Config

The Google Workspace Fleet integration, Filebeat module, or similarly structured data is required to be compatible with this rule.

### Important Information Regarding Google Workspace Event Lag Times
- As per Google's documentation, Google Workspace administrators may observe lag times ranging from minutes up to 3 days between the time of an event's occurrence and the event being visible in the Google Workspace admin/audit logs.
- This rule is configured to run every 10 minutes with a lookback time of 130 minutes.
- To reduce the risk of false negatives, consider reducing the interval that the Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) Filebeat module polls Google's reporting API for new events.
- By default, `var.interval` is set to 2 hours (2h). Consider changing this interval to a lower value, such as 10 minutes (10m).
- See the following references for further information:
  - https://support.google.com/a/answer/7061566
  - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-module-google_workspace.html

Rule queryedit

event.dataset:google_workspace.admin and event.provider:admin and
event.category:iam and event.action:(ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION or
ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION) and
google_workspace.admin.new_value:false

Rule version historyedit

Version 13 (8.3.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 11 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 7 (8.0.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.dataset:(gsuite.admin or google_workspace.admin) and
    event.provider:admin and event.category:iam and
    event.action:(ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION or
    ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION) and (gsuite.admin.new_value:false or
    google_workspace.admin.new_value:false)
Version 6 (7.15.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 5 (7.14.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.dataset:(gsuite.admin or google_workspace.admin) and
    event.provider:admin and event.category:iam and
    event.action:(ENFORCE_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION or
    ALLOW_STRONG_AUTHENTICATION) and gsuite.admin.new_value:false
Version 4 (7.13.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 3 (7.12.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (7.11.2 release)
  • Formatting only