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Entra / Microsoft 365 · Compliance & audit

Report user update audit records

How to find unified audit records for user account update events and analyze what actions/changes.

Connect & set up

Run these once per session. All scopes are read-only unless the script makes changes.

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes Directory.Read.All
Connect-ExchangeOnline

Run it

The main script. Copy it, or download the .ps1 and run it from your console.

param(
[int] $LookbackDays = 180
)
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes Directory.Read.All
Connect-ExchangeOnline
# Find some audit records to play with from the last 180 days
Write-Host "Searching for audit records for update user events..."
[array]$Records = Search-UnifiedAuditLog -StartDate (Get-Date).AddDays(-$LookbackDays) -EndDate (Get-Date).AddDays(1) -Formatted -ResultSize 5000 -Operations "update user"
If (!($Records)) {
Write-Host "No audit records found for update user events - exiting" ; break
} Else {
Write-Host ("{0} audit records found - processing..." -f $Records.count) }
$Report = [System.Collections.Generic.List[Object]]::new()
ForEach ($Rec in $Records) {
$AuditData = $Rec.AuditData | ConvertFrom-Json
$OldValue = $Null; $NewValue = $Null
[array]$ModifiedProperties = $AuditData.ModifiedProperties
[array]$Properties = $ModifiedProperties | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq 'Included Updated Properties' } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty NewValue
If (!([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Properties))) {
# Create a list of updated properties
[array]$ListOfProperties = $Properties.Split(",")
ForEach ($P in $ListOfProperties) {
$Property = $P.Trim()
$Command = '$NewValue = (($modifiedproperties' + " | where {`$_.Name -eq '" + $Property + "'}).NewValue -replace '[\[\]]', '').Trim()"
Invoke-Expression $Command
$Command = '$OldValue = (($modifiedproperties' + " | where {`$_.Name -eq '" + $Property + "'}).OldValue -replace '[\[\]]', '').Trim()"
Invoke-Expression $Command
$NewValue = $NewValue -Replace '["]'
$OldValue = $OldValue -Replace '["]'
If ($Property -eq "StrongAuthenticationPhoneAppDetail") {
# Handle an update of the MFA authentication method
$MFADetails = $OldValue.replace("}", '')
$MFADetails = $MFADetails.replace("{", '').trim()
[array]$MFAData = $MFADetails.Split(",")
$OldValue = ("{0} {1}" -f ($MFAData[0].toString()), ($MFAData[3].toString().trim()))
$MFADetails = $NewValue.replace("}", '')
$MFADetails = $MFADetails.replace("{", '').trim()
[array]$MFAData = $MFADetails.Split(",")
$NewValue = ("{0} {1}" -f ($MFAData[0].toString()), ($MFAData[3].toString().trim()))
}
If ($Property -eq "AssignedLicense") {
# License updates - this is an example of where we could do more to extract data from the audit records
$NewValue = "License Update " + $NewValue }
If ($Property -eq "AssignedPlan") {
$NewValue = "See audit record for assigned plan information" }
If ($Property -eq "LicenseAssignmentDetail") {
$NewValue = "See audit record for license assignment detail" }
If ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($OldValue)) {
$OldValue = "Not filled" }
# Some audit events are caused by background processing - so let's find out what background process is involved for these ecents
If ($Rec.UserIds.SubString(0,16) -eq "ServicePrincipal") {
$UserId = Get-MgServicePrincipal -ServicePrincipalId $Rec.Userids.Substring(17,($Rec.Userids.Length-17)) | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DisplayName
} Else {
# It's a normal user who performed the action
$UserId = $Rec.UserIds }
# Report what happened
$ReportLine = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
Timestamp = $Rec.CreationDate
User = $UserId
Account = $AuditData.ObjectId
Property = $Property
'Old value' = $OldValue
'New value' = $NewValue }
$Report.Add($ReportLine)
} # End For to extract updated properties
} # End If Properties
} # End For audit events
$Report | Out-GridView

Parameters

ParameterDefaultNotes
-LookbackDays180Number of days back to search the unified audit log.
Attribution