Keeper Security’s new native integration with Microsoft Sentinel promises to turn privileged credential telemetry into a real‑time detection stream for SOC teams — delivering prebuilt dashboards, analytics rules and a push connector that ingests Keeper event data into Sentinel workspaces in both commercial and Azure Government clouds.
Keeper Security has positioned its cloud‑native Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform, KeeperPAM®, as a modern, zero‑trust and zero‑knowledge vault for passwords, passkeys, secrets, remote connections and privileged sessions. The vendor asserts that the new Microsoft Sentinel integration is available as an out‑of‑the‑box Content Hub solution, with a one‑click deployment flow that installs a Keeper push connector, prebuilt analytics rules (for events such as password changes and MFA state updates) and a dashboard mapped to a Log Analytics table named KeeperSecurityEventNewLogs_CL. This announcement arrives at a time when identity and credential abuse remain the primary vectors for enterprise breaches. Industry telemetry and breach reports over the past several years consistently show credential theft, phishing and abuse of privileged accounts as top causes of compromise — a trend the security industry broadly recognizes and prioritizes for mitigation.
However, this integration is not a silver bullet. Organizations must validate deployment claims in a test environment, apply strict RBAC and least‑privilege patterns for the ingestion app, and tune analytic rules to manage alert noise. Keeper’s zero‑knowledge and zero‑trust positioning aligns with modern PAM expectations, but independent audits and contractual assurances remain the prudent path for regulated or high‑assurance environments.
Source: Morningstar https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr...-rise-in-identity-abuse-and-privilege-misuse/
Background
Keeper Security has positioned its cloud‑native Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform, KeeperPAM®, as a modern, zero‑trust and zero‑knowledge vault for passwords, passkeys, secrets, remote connections and privileged sessions. The vendor asserts that the new Microsoft Sentinel integration is available as an out‑of‑the‑box Content Hub solution, with a one‑click deployment flow that installs a Keeper push connector, prebuilt analytics rules (for events such as password changes and MFA state updates) and a dashboard mapped to a Log Analytics table named KeeperSecurityEventNewLogs_CL. This announcement arrives at a time when identity and credential abuse remain the primary vectors for enterprise breaches. Industry telemetry and breach reports over the past several years consistently show credential theft, phishing and abuse of privileged accounts as top causes of compromise — a trend the security industry broadly recognizes and prioritizes for mitigation. What the Keeper → Sentinel integration actually delivers
Native connector and Content Hub deployment
- Keeper is listed as a supported data connector in the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub. The integration installs a Keeper Security Push Connector to route Keeper audit events into Sentinel’s Log Analytics workspace. The deployment flow is designed to guide administrators through resource selection (subscription, resource group, Log Analytics workspace) and to create the required Entra (Azure AD) app registration used for secure ingestion.
- Once enabled, Keeper events populate a custom table (KeeperSecurityEventNewLogs_CL), and the Content Hub includes prebuilt artifacts:
- Data connector (push connector)
- Analytics rule templates (e.g., Password Changed, User MFA Changed)
- A Keeper Security Dashboard workbook for visualization and triage.
Real‑time credential and privileged access telemetry
- The integration streams detailed Keeper audit events — including password rotations, privileged session starts/stops, policy changes, and authentication anomalies — into Sentinel where they can be correlated with Entra/Microsoft Defender/XDR telemetry, threat intelligence and custom detection rules. This enables SOCs to automate alerts and map Keeper activity to MITRE ATT&CK techniques when applicable.
Human and non‑human identity coverage
- Keeper’s platform instruments both human users and non‑human identities (service accounts, automation principals and machine identities). The Sentinel integration therefore brings credential usage visibility for service accounts and CI/CD secrets into the same SIEM pipeline used for human authentication telemetry. This is an important visibility improvement because service identities are frequent targets for lateral movement and persistent access.
Why this matters now: the identity‑first threat landscape
Credential theft, credential stuffing and privileged account abuse remain dominant breach mechanisms. Industry studies and breach reports show credentials — and the abuse of privileged identities — as recurring root causes in data breaches and ransomware intrusions. Sentinel’s ability to ingest Keeper telemetry gives defenders another identity‑centric data source to detect early signs of account misuse or unsecured secrets. Microsoft’s ongoing investment in Sentinel UEBA and cross‑cloud behavioral analytics increases the value of identity telemetry by enabling peer‑based baselining, impossible‑travel detection and correlation across Entra, endpoint and cloud console signals. Feeding Keeper events into that fabric helps close blind spots where privileged credential activity previously lived only in vendor consoles or siloed audit logs.Strengths: what the integration gets right
- Faster detection and correlation: By ingesting Keeper audit logs directly into Sentinel, security teams can correlate privileged credential events with endpoint alerts, cloud console activity and identity risk signals — shrinking mean time to detect (MTTD). Prebuilt analytics templates accelerate initial coverage.
- Human + machine identity visibility: Service accounts, automation identities and CI/CD secrets often escape traditional PAM/SIEM coverage. This integration brings those signals into Sentinel’s hunt‑and‑investigate workflows, improving detection of privilege misuse and automation‑driven attacks.
- Operational speed and lower integration friction: The Content Hub approach and prebuilt artifacts reduce engineering effort and custom parsing, enabling security teams to stand up ingestion and start seeing events in minutes rather than weeks. That is meaningful for lean SOC teams or organizations with compressed deployment windows.
- Audit and compliance support: Keeper event logs routed to Sentinel create an immutable audit trail that can be retained to meet regulatory reporting requirements, internal compliance checks and incident forensics. Prebuilt dashboards help auditors and security teams surface policy changes and privilege escalations quickly.
Practical limitations and operational caveats
1) “One‑click” and automation claims deserve scrutiny
Vendor messaging highlights a one‑click Content Hub deployment that “eliminates the need for manual setup or Workspace IDs.” In practice, the documented deployment flow still requires administrators to select a Log Analytics workspace, confirm subscription and resource groups, and generate an Entra app registration with appropriate permissions. These steps are simplified by the Content Hub templates, but they are not zero‑touch: an operator with Azure RBAC and Entra permissions must still approve and configure the connector. Organizations should not assume the integration removes all access or governance decisions.2) Privileges required for ingestion are sensitive
To ingest Keeper events, the integration will typically require the ability to create an Entra app registration and assign roles or create a data collection rule. Overly broad permissions during setup risk expanding the integration’s attack surface. Best practice is to use least‑privilege app registrations, grant only the scopes necessary for ingestion, and manage secrets/certificates for the app via a secure Key Vault pattern.3) Data residency, telemetry retention and compliance
Streaming Keeper events into Sentinel transfers telemetry into Microsoft‑managed storage governed by the tenant’s region and retention policies. For regulated environments, particularly in government or highly regulated industries, teams must validate that retention windows, data residency and access controls meet compliance needs before enabling broad ingestion. The Content Hub supports Azure Government regions, but the controls and contracts governing data handling should be reviewed.4) Alert fatigue and signal tuning
More telemetry increases detection opportunities but also increases the potential for noisy alerts. Prebuilt analytics rules (e.g., password changed, MFA toggles) are useful starting points, but SOCs must tune thresholds, suppression rules and playbooks to avoid overwhelming triage queues. A measured rollout — routing Keeper alerts initially to a SOC notebook or low‑priority queue — lets teams refine rules without disrupting operations.5) Vendor claims that require independent verification
- Keeper’s description of zero‑knowledge encryption and “Keeper has no access to customer data” is a core architectural claim. This is standard vendor messaging for zero‑knowledge vaults, and Keeper documents their client‑side encryption model. Independent verification of a vendor’s zero‑knowledge implementation typically requires a combination of third‑party audits, code review, and observable cryptographic proofs. Organizations should request audit reports (SOC 2, FedRAMP, ISO) and consider independent cryptographic review for high‑assurance environments.
- Claims such as “eliminates the need for Workspace IDs” or “one‑click deployment with no manual configuration” are marketing accelerators. The Content Hub reduces friction, but operationally‑required permissions and workspace selection are still part of the deployment process; teams should validate assumptions in a non‑production tenant before mass rollout.
How to operationalize the integration: recommended steps
- Prepare an Azure test tenant or sandbox workspace and grant a small engineering group the necessary RBAC for deployment.
- Validate your Keeper tenant and the set of audit events you want to stream (human vs non‑human identity events).
- Deploy the Keeper Security Content Hub item into the test Log Analytics workspace and confirm KeeperSecurityEventNewLogs_CL populates with sample events.
- Import the prebuilt analytics rules and map them to MITRE ATT&CK classifications for prioritization.
- Tune rule thresholds and suppression lists, and create an initial playbook in Sentinel SOAR to triage common Keeper events (e.g., unexpected privileged session, mass password rotations, service account access spikes).
- Integrate Keeper events into UEBA and cross‑cloud hunts to correlate privileged access with endpoint anomalies, unusual console activity or suspicious automation patterns.
- Document retention, access and export policies; for regulated workloads, formalize where Keeper telemetry is stored and how long it will be retained for audits.
Detection playbook examples (high‑value use cases)
- Unusual privileged session — Alert when a privileged session is initiated from a new country/IP or outside normal business hours, correlate with Defender for Endpoint telemetry for concurrent suspicious process activity. (Keeper event => Sentinel rule => playbook to isolate host and revoke session).
- Mass password rotations or policy changes — Flag sudden mass rotations or a sequence of policy edits across multiple accounts; this could indicate attacker attempts to lock out legitimate admins or prepare for lateral movement. Map to an escalation workflow that requires manager approval for bulk changes.
- Service account misuse — Monitor unusual usage patterns for service principals and automation identities (e.g., a normally quiet service account suddenly performing high‑volume access). Treat this with elevated severity and validate whether the activity aligns with scheduled automation.
- MFA disablement or reset — Immediate alert and investigation when MFA is turned off or reset for privileged users; combine with password change events for context.
Governance checklist before enabling production ingestion
- Ensure the Entra app registration created during setup uses certificate‑based authentication or a short‑lived secret managed in Key Vault.
- Limit the Keeper‑to‑Sentinel connector to read‑only telemetry scopes wherever possible.
- Confirm retention settings for Log Analytics meet legal and compliance requirements.
- Review access controls on the Sentinel workspace and workbook dashboards; apply RBAC separation between SOC analysts and engineers.
- Establish a 30‑day tuning window to measure false positive rate, MTTR improvements, and the number of Keeper‑driven incidents that lead to meaningful containment.
Risk assessment: what defenders must watch for
- Overreliance on vendor defaults: Out‑of‑the‑box analytics are useful, but treat them as a starting point. Attackers will adapt to common patterns; ongoing threat hunting and custom detection engineering are essential.
- Supply chain and federation risk: Ingesting Keeper telemetry into Azure adds one more dependency to your detection stack; if either Keeper or Azure experiences outages, your ability to detect related events could be affected. Plan redundant logging paths or local archival exports when compliance requires independent data custody.
- Privilege creep during setup: The app registration and ingestion pathways must be audited and reviewed periodically. Use entitlement reviews to ensure there’s no permanent over‑privileging.
- False sense of completeness: Keeper events are a rich signal but won’t show every attack stage (e.g., post‑exfiltration actions on endpoints). Treat Keeper telemetry as one layer in a multi‑layer identity detection strategy that includes Entra sign‑ins, Defender endpoint telemetry and cloud audit logs.
Final analysis — who should care and next steps
For security operations teams that already rely on Microsoft Sentinel, adding Keeper as a native connector can close a notable visibility gap around privileged account usage and non‑human credentials. The biggest operational wins come from correlating Keeper events with endpoint and cloud signals to detect credential abuse earlier and to enforce least‑privilege and just‑in‑time models more effectively.However, this integration is not a silver bullet. Organizations must validate deployment claims in a test environment, apply strict RBAC and least‑privilege patterns for the ingestion app, and tune analytic rules to manage alert noise. Keeper’s zero‑knowledge and zero‑trust positioning aligns with modern PAM expectations, but independent audits and contractual assurances remain the prudent path for regulated or high‑assurance environments.
Executive takeaways
- Immediate value: Rapidly leverages Keeper telemetry inside Sentinel to improve credential and privileged access detection.
- Operational caution: One‑click marketing understates the need for controlled permissions, workspace selection and governance during deployment.
- Tactical priority: Treat Keeper events as high‑value identity signals and integrate them into UEBA, XDR correlation and playbooks that respond to credential misuse.
- Governance: Enforce least‑privilege on ingestion credentials, validate retention and residency for compliance, and plan a tuning window to reduce false positives.
Source: Morningstar https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr...-rise-in-identity-abuse-and-privilege-misuse/
