Topic starter
25/06/2026 1:00 am
TL;DR: A low-privileged legacy service principal, over-permissive app roles, PIM group activation, and certificate-based authentication can be chained to reach Global Administrator access in Entra ID, bypassing passwords and MFA, according to Semperis research. The real failure is not one control, but the assumption that individually scoped permissions cannot combine into tenant-wide trust collapse.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Semperis: “EntraGoat Scenario 6: Exploiting Certificate-Based Authentication to Impersonate Global Admin in Entra ID”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when a user can own a privileged service principal?
A: A user who owns a privileged service principal can often change credentials, pivot into app-only authentication, and exercise the application’s assigned role without using the user account directly.
Q: Why can app-only permissions create tenant takeover risk even without directory roles?
A: Because some app roles change the tenant trust model rather than directly managing users.
Q: What signs show certificate-based authentication is being misused in Entra ID?
A: Look for unexpected certificate authority uploads, authentication policy changes, new certificate bindings, and privileged sign-ins that do not match normal enrolment patterns.
Practitioner guidance
- Map service principal ownership chains Trace which application identities own other application identities and flag any ownership relationship that can alter credentials or secrets.
- Review app roles for tenant-wide trust impact Examine app-only permissions such as Organization.ReadWrite.All for the ability to change authentication policy, not just data access scope.
- Restrict certificate-based authentication administration Limit who can enable CBA, change binding mode, or upload certificate authorities, and treat those rights as tenant trust controls.
Bottom line: The breach pattern is a chained identity failure, not a single bad permission, and it turns application ownership plus authentication policy access into tenant takeover.
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This topic was modified 17 hours ago by NHI Mgmt Group
25/06/2026 10:10 am
Identity ownership is a privilege boundary, not an administrative detail. The article shows that one service principal can own another, and that ownership can expose credential management rights even when directory roles appear absent. That means governance models that track roles but ignore object ownership miss a real escalation channel. Practitioners need to treat ownership edges as part of the effective attack surface.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 73% of vaults are misconfigured, leading to unauthorised access and exposure of sensitive data, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should identity teams govern PIM when group activation changes authentication policy access?
A: Treat PIM eligibility as a control path into sensitive configuration, not just a temporary elevation for support work. If group activation can unlock authentication policy administration, then eligibility review, justification quality, and role separation must be governed like privileged production access, because the downstream effect can be tenant-wide trust change.
👉 Read our full editorial: Entra ID certificate bypass shows how misconfigurations enable tenant takeover
This post was modified 17 hours ago by NHI Mgmt Group