Microsoft Sentinel, you can detect and respond to social engineering attack emails

In Microsoft Sentinel, you can detect and respond to social engineering attack emails (e.g., phishing, spear-phishing, or business email compromise) by leveraging data from Microsoft Defender for Office 365, which provides advanced capabilities for identifying these types of email threats.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to detect and mitigate social engineering attack emails using Microsoft Sentinel:

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Step 1: Set Up Data Connectors for Microsoft Defender for Office 365

To detect social engineering attacks, you need to first ensure that Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is integrated with Microsoft Sentinel.

1. Open Microsoft Sentinel:
   • In the Azure portal, go to Microsoft Sentinel.
   • Select the Sentinel workspace.
2. Enable Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Integration:
   • Go to Data connectors under Configuration in the Sentinel workspace.
   • Search for Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
   • Click Open connector page and follow the setup instructions to integrate it with your Sentinel workspace.
   • You’ll need global admin permissions in Microsoft 365 to complete the setup.

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Step 2: Configure Defender for Office 365 Anti-Phishing Policies

1. Navigate to Microsoft Defender for Office 365:
   • In the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, go to Email & collaboration.
   • Under Policies & rules, select Threat policies.
2. Create or Update Anti-Phishing Policies:
   • Set up or modify Anti-Phishing policies to detect social engineering attacks, such as spear-phishing or impersonation attacks.
   • Impersonation Protection: Configure settings to detect emails that appear to come from internal or trusted sources, but are actually spoofed.
   • User Impersonation: This feature helps detect if an email is pretending to be a user within your organization, which is common in spear-phishing attacks.
3. Anti-Phishing Actions:
   • For suspicious emails, configure actions like:
     • Quarantine emails.
     • Mark emails as spam.
     • Send alerts for investigation.

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Step 3: Leverage Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Features

Safe Links and Safe Attachments can help protect against phishing attempts and malicious attachments in emails:

• Safe Links: Protects against malicious URLs in emails by rewriting them to route through Microsoft Defender’s safe browsing service.
• Safe Attachments: Scans attachments in real-time for malicious content before delivering the email to the inbox.

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Step 4: Detect Social Engineering Attacks with Sentinel

Once Defender for Office 365 is integrated, Sentinel will receive logs related to email security incidents. You can query these logs for signs of social engineering attacks.

A. Pre-Built Analytics Rules

1. Go to Analytics in Microsoft Sentinel.
2. Search for and enable pre-built rules related to phishing or social engineering attacks.
   • Look for rules like:
     • Suspicious email activity.
     • Phishing attempts.
     • Impersonation attempts.

B. Create Custom Detection Rules

1. Go to Analytics > + Create > Scheduled query rule.
2. Create a query to detect social engineering attacks, for example, identifying phishing attempts in the EmailEvents table:

   EmailEvents
   | where ActionType == "PhishDetected"
   | summarize count() by UserPrincipalName, ActionType, Timestamp
   | order by Timestamp desc
   

   This query will detect any emails flagged as phishing and give you a list of affected users.

3. Set a detection threshold to trigger alerts if a suspicious activity pattern is detected.

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Step 5: Investigate Social Engineering Attacks

Once social engineering emails are detected, you can investigate them further using Microsoft Sentinel’s investigation tools.

1. Review Incidents:
   • Go to the Incidents section in Sentinel.
   • Look for incidents related to phishing or suspicious email activity.
   • Review the alerts to see the full context of the attack, including affected users, email metadata, and any related activity.
2. Use Hunting Queries:
   • Use KQL queries to perform deeper investigations into social engineering attack patterns.
   • Example query to find unusual login or email activity after a phishing attack:

     SigninLogs
     | where UserPrincipalName in (EmailEvents | where ActionType == "PhishDetected" | project UserPrincipalName)
     | summarize count() by UserPrincipalName, IPAddress, Timestamp
     

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Step 6: Automate Response with Playbooks

Automate responses to social engineering attacks using Azure Logic Apps (playbooks).

1. Create a Playbook:
   • Go to Playbooks in Microsoft Sentinel.
   • Click + Create to create a new playbook.
   • Use Logic Apps templates to automate actions such as:
     • Quarantining malicious emails.
     • Notifying IT teams or security analysts about high-risk phishing emails.
     • Blocking the sender of suspicious emails.

   Example playbook:

   • Action 1: If a phishing email is detected, automatically quarantine the email in the affected user’s mailbox.
   • Action 2: Alert the security team via email or text message.

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Step 7: Review and Update Policies

After setting up detection and protection mechanisms, continually review the effectiveness of your policies:

• Refine Anti-Phishing settings to improve detection accuracy.
• Monitor dashboards for trends in social engineering attack activity.
• Review incidents and alerts regularly to ensure swift response and mitigation.

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Step 8: Enable Microsoft Sentinel Dashboards for Email Threats

1. Use Workbooks to set up visual dashboards to monitor the status of social engineering attack threats.
2. Create custom workbooks to display data like:
   • The number of detected phishing emails.
   • The number of users affected by social engineering attacks.
   • Suspicious email traffic patterns.

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By combining the power of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Microsoft Sentinel, you can proactively monitor, detect, and respond to social engineering attack emails, ensuring that your organization stays protected against sophisticated email-based threats.

Would you like to dive deeper into any of these steps or need help configuring specific policies or queries?