Detecting OAuth Token Theft

When to Use

• Investigating alerts for impossible travel or anomalous token usage in Microsoft Entra ID
• Responding to a suspected session hijacking or pass-the-cookie attack
• Configuring proactive defenses against OAuth token theft in an Azure/M365 environment
• Detecting OAuth device code phishing campaigns that bypass MFA
• Analyzing sign-in logs for token replay indicators
• Implementing Token Protection conditional access policies to bind tokens to devices

Do not use for on-premises Kerberos ticket attacks (pass-the-ticket, golden ticket); use Active Directory-specific investigation techniques for those scenarios.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Entra ID P2 license (required for Identity Protection risk detections and conditional access)
• Global Administrator or Security Administrator role in the Entra admin center
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDCA) license for session anomaly detection
• Access to Entra ID Sign-in Logs and Audit Logs (requires Diagnostic Settings configured to Log Analytics or Sentinel)