Average group membership changes per year should be investigated
AD-GCHG-01InfoActive DirectoryGroups
Part of Active Directory · Active Directory · Groups · All checks
Invoke-Maester -TestId AD-GCHG-01Overview
Section titled “Overview”Understanding the rate of group membership changes provides insights into:
- Operational tempo: How frequently group memberships change
- Security monitoring: Baseline for detecting anomalous activity
- Compliance trends: Track changes over time for audit purposes
- Change management: Identify periods of high activity
- Lifecycle management: Understand group creation and modification patterns
Control Type
Section titled “Control Type”Operational
Security Recommendation
Section titled “Security Recommendation”Monitor group membership changes for security anomalies:
- Establish baselines for normal change rates
- Alert on changes that exceed normal thresholds
- Review spikes in activity for unauthorized changes
- Correlate group changes with change management tickets
- Implement approval workflows for privileged group changes
- Document business reasons for high-volume change periods
How the Test Works
Section titled “How the Test Works”This test analyzes group metadata to calculate:
- Total groups in the directory
- Timespan since oldest group was created
- Average number of group modifications per year
- Breakdown of creations and modifications by year
- Groups modified within
RecentModificationDays(default 90)
The analysis helps identify trends and patterns in group management activity.
Related Tests
Section titled “Related Tests”Test-MtAdGroupPrivilegedWithMembersDetails- Reviews current privileged group stateTest-MtAdGroupEmptyNonPrivilegedDetails- Identifies potentially stale groups
Details
Section titled “Details”Every attribute of this check
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Test ID | AD-GCHG-01 |
| Severity | Info |
| Suite | Active Directory |
| Product | Active Directory |
| Feature | Groups |
| Area | Identity lifecycle and hygiene |
| Resource type | Group |
| MITRE ATT&CK | None |
| PowerShell test | Test-MtAdGroupChangeAveragePerYear |
| Services | ActiveDirectory |
| Permissions | ActiveDirectory:Ldap:group:ReadProperty |
Source
Section titled “Source”- Test:
tests/ad/group/Test.AD-GCHG-01.ps1 - Documentation:
tests/ad/group/Test.AD-GCHG-01.md