A critical identity breach pattern exposing how misconfigured application roles enable attackers to escalate from low-risk permissions to full administrative control in cloud environments.
What This Breach Pattern Is
This attack exploits the dangerous gap between application-level roles and directory-level privileges. Adversaries pivot from seemingly harmless app roles like App.Read.All or custom enterprise roles into high-privilege identity positions through misconfigured app-to-directory mappings.
In poorly governed cloud environments, these roles are assigned to broad user groups, granted hidden directory privileges, or allowed to access sensitive APIs like Microsoft Graph. The result: a direct escalation path from app role to directory admin to global admin.
Common Attack Vector
App Role → Graph API Access → Directory Modification → Global Admin Control
Critical App Roles at Risk
Directory.ReadWrite.All
Grants full read/write access to directory objects, roles, and assignments. Often assigned without understanding the scope of control it provides over the entire tenant.
AppRoleAdmin
Enables modification of application role assignments. Attackers leverage this to grant themselves additional permissions or elevate service principals to admin status.
App.Read.All
Provides visibility into all application configurations and secrets. While seemingly read-only, it exposes credential stores and API keys that enable lateral movement.
Custom Enterprise Roles
Organization-defined roles with unclear privilege boundaries. These often combine multiple permissions in ways that create unintended escalation paths through the identity fabric.
Attacker Objectives and Methods
Initial Access via App Role
Gain assignment to a seemingly low-risk application role through social engineering, insider access, or compromised credentials.
Graph API Exploitation
Leverage app role permissions to access Microsoft Graph API endpoints for directory enumeration and privilege discovery.
Privilege Escalation
Modify directory objects, create service principals, or assign high-value roles to controlled identities for admin-level access.
Establish Persistence
Create backdoors through modified Conditional Access policies, hidden app registrations, or persistent admin role assignments.
Application-defined roles grant unsafe directory or admin-level privileges without proper scoping. These roles often combine multiple permission sets that create unintended escalation paths through the identity control plane.
MC-202: Broad Group Assignments
Enterprise apps assigned to "Everyone," "All Users," or generic shared groups. This configuration eliminates the principle of least privilege and expands the attack surface exponentially across the organization.
MC-204: Weak Access Governance
No review process for app-to-directory privilege inheritance and escalation. Organizations lack visibility into how application permissions map to directory-level control and admin capabilities.
MC-147: Unrestricted App Registration
Uncontrolled creation and assignment of app roles and enterprise apps. Developers and users can register applications with dangerous permissions without security review or approval workflows.
Attacker authenticates using compromised credentials with app role assignment
2
Stage 5: Privilege Escalation
App role permissions exploited to elevate directory privileges
3
Stage 8: Persistence
Backdoors established through modified identity configurations
4
Stage 9: Action on Objectives
Full admin control achieved, lateral movement to sensitive resources
In documented breaches, this pattern represents one of the fastest privilege escalation techniques, often completing within hours of initial access. The attack chain leverages legitimate identity infrastructure, making detection challenging without specialized monitoring.
Russian state-sponsored group uses app role escalation for stealth and long-lived access. Known for exploiting federation weaknesses and maintaining persistent presence through identity manipulation.
Lapsus$ (ICTAM-011)
High-profile extortion group abused misconfigured enterprise apps in multiple breaches against major corporations. Leveraged social engineering to gain initial app role access.
RaaS Affiliates (ICTAM-020)
Ransomware-as-a-Service operators exploit "low-privilege" app roles for admin access. This technique is now standard in RaaS playbooks due to low detection rates.
Insider Threats (ICTAM-025)
Malicious insiders manipulate app roles for internal elevation. They exploit institutional knowledge of app configurations and approval workflows to escalate privileges covertly.
ETS-005: Federation Weakness → Full Cloud Takeover
How federated identity misconfigurations enable complete cloud infrastructure compromise. App role escalation often serves as the initial pivot point in federation-based attacks.
ETS-006: Role Misconfiguration → Privilege Escalation Chain
The cascading impact of role assignment errors across cloud platforms. This storyline demonstrates how a single misconfigured app role can compromise an entire identity ecosystem.
Business Impact
Organizations experiencing app role escalation attacks face: