Exploring Azure Active Directory Attack Surface : Enumerating Authentication Methods with Open-Source Intelligence Tools

Abstract

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is Microsoft’s identity and access management service used globally by 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies and many other organisations. Recent attacks by nation-state adversaries have targeted these organisations by exploiting known attack vectors. In this paper, open-source intelligence (OSINT) is gathered from organisations using Azure AD to explore the current attack surface. OSINT is collected from Fortune 500 companies and top 2000 universities globally. The collected OSINT includes authentication methods used by the organisation and the full name and phone number of the primary technical contact. The findings reveal that most organisations are using Azure AD and that majority of these organisations are using authentication methods exploited during the recent attacks by nation-state adversaries.