Google Workspace Role Modifiededit

Detects when a custom admin role or its permissions are modified. An adversary may modify a custom admin role in order to elevate the permissions of other user accounts and persist in their target’s environment.

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

References:

Tags:

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

Version: 100 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positivesedit

Google Workspace admin roles 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

### 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:(ADD_PRIVILEGE or UPDATE_ROLE)

Threat mappingedit

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version historyedit

Version 100 (8.5.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 14 (8.4.0 release)
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Version 12 (8.3.0 release)
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Version 10 (8.2.0 release)
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Version 6 (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:(ADD_PRIVILEGE or UPDATE_ROLE)
Version 5 (7.15.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (7.13.0 release)
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Version 3 (7.12.0 release)
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Version 2 (7.11.2 release)
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