Az - Illicit Consent Grant

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

Az - Illicit Consent Grant is a security concern in Microsoft Azure where an attacker can trick an Azure user into granting permissions to a malicious application. This could potentially allow the attacker to access and exfiltrate the user's data.

🧐 Why ?

Az - Illicit Consent Grant is essential to understand because it represents a significant security risk. The increasing adoption of cloud services like Microsoft Azure makes it a lucrative target for attackers. Understanding this issue can help users and administrators protect sensitive data on the platform.

⛏️ How ?

To mitigate the risk of Az - Illicit Consent Grant, users should be cautious when granting permissions to applications and should only grant permissions that are necessary for the app to function. Additionally, users should regularly review and manage permissions granted to their apps in Azure Active Directory. Administrators can monitor consent grants using Azure AD logs and should implement policies to manage consent grants.

⏳ When ?

The issue of Illicit Consent Grants in Azure has been a growing concern since the widespread adoption of cloud-based services, particularly from around 2018 when more businesses started migrating their operations to the cloud.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

At a technical level, Illicit Consent Grant involves an attacker registering a malicious application in Azure. The attacker then tricks a user into granting consent to the app, typically through a phishing attack. Once the user consents, the app can access the user's data based on the permissions it has been granted. The attack exploits the fact that Azure's consent framework allows users to grant permissions to apps. The challenge here lies in educating users about the risks of granting permissions and in monitoring and managing consent grants.