Skip to content

Microsoft 365 Authentication in Prowler

Prowler for Microsoft 365 supports multiple authentication types. Authentication methods vary between Prowler App and Prowler CLI:

Prowler App:

Prowler CLI:

Warning

The Service Principal with User Credentials method will be deprecated in October 2025 when Microsoft enforces MFA in all tenants, which will not allow user authentication without interactive methods.

Required Permissions

To run the full Prowler provider, including PowerShell checks, two types of permission scopes must be set in Microsoft Entra ID.

When using service principal authentication, add these Application Permissions:

Microsoft Graph API Permissions:

  • AuditLog.Read.All: Required for Entra service.
  • Directory.Read.All: Required for all services.
  • Policy.Read.All: Required for all services.
  • SharePointTenantSettings.Read.All: Required for SharePoint service.
  • User.Read (IMPORTANT: this must be set as delegated): Required for the sign-in.

External API Permissions:

  • Exchange.ManageAsApp from external API Office 365 Exchange Online: Required for Exchange PowerShell module app authentication. The Global Reader role must also be assigned to the app.
  • application_access from external API Skype and Teams Tenant Admin API: Required for Teams PowerShell module app authentication.
Note

Directory.Read.All can be replaced with Domain.Read.All for more restrictive permissions, but Entra checks related to DirectoryRoles and GetUsers will not run. If using this option, you must also add the Organization.Read.All permission to the service principal application for authentication.

Note

This is the recommended authentication method because it allows running the full M365 provider including PowerShell checks, providing complete coverage of all available security checks.

Service Principal + User Credentials Authentication Permissions

When using service principal with user credentials authentication, you need both sets of permissions:

1. Service Principal Application Permissions:

  • All the Microsoft Graph API permissions listed above are required.
  • External API permissions listed above are not needed.

2. User-Level Permissions: These are set at the M365_USER level, so the user used to run Prowler must have one of the following roles:

  • Global Reader (recommended): Allows reading all required information.
  • Exchange Administrator and Teams Administrator: User needs both roles for the same access as Global Reader.

Browser Authentication Permissions

When using browser authentication, permissions are delegated to the user, so the user must have the appropriate permissions rather than the application.

Warning

With browser authentication, you will only be able to run checks that work through MS Graph API. PowerShell module checks will not be executed.

Step-by-Step Permission Assignment

Create Service Principal Application

  1. Access Microsoft Entra ID

    Overview of Microsoft Entra ID

  2. Navigate to "Applications" > "App registrations"

    App Registration nav

  3. Click "+ New registration", complete the form, and click "Register"

    New Registration

  4. Go to "Certificates & secrets" > "Client secrets" > "+ New client secret"

    Certificate & Secrets nav

  5. Fill in the required fields and click "Add", then copy the generated value (this will be AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET)

    New Client Secret

Grant Microsoft Graph API Permissions

  1. Go to App Registration > Select your Prowler App > click on "API permissions"

    API Permission Page

  2. Click "+ Add a permission" > "Microsoft Graph" > "Application permissions"

    Add API Permission

  3. Search and select the required permissions:

    • AuditLog.Read.All: Required for Entra service
    • Directory.Read.All: Required for all services
    • Policy.Read.All: Required for all services
    • SharePointTenantSettings.Read.All: Required for SharePoint service

    Permission Screenshots

    Application Permissions

  4. Click "Add permissions", then click "Grant admin consent for "

Grant PowerShell Module Permissions (For Service Principal Authentication)

  1. Add Exchange API:

    • Search and select "Office 365 Exchange Online" API in APIs my organization uses

    Office 365 Exchange Online API

    • Select "Exchange.ManageAsApp" permission and click "Add permissions"

    Exchange.ManageAsApp Permission

    • Assign Global Reader role to the app: Go to Roles and administrators > click here for directory level assignment

    Roles and administrators

    • Search for Global Reader and assign it to your application

    Global Reader Role

  2. Add Teams API:

    • Search and select "Skype and Teams Tenant Admin API" in APIs my organization uses

    Skype and Teams Tenant Admin API

    • Select "application_access" permission and click "Add permissions"

    application_access Permission

  3. Click "Grant admin consent for " to grant admin consent

    Grant Admin Consent

Assign User Roles (For User Authentication)

When using Service Principal with User Credentials authentication, assign the following roles to the user:

  1. Go to Users > All Users > Click on the email for the user

    User Overview

  2. Click "Assigned Roles"

    User Roles

  3. Click "Add assignments", then search and select:

    • Global Reader (recommended)
    • OR Exchange Administrator and Teams Administrator (both required)

    Global Reader Screenshots

  4. Click next, assign the role as "Active", and click "Assign"

    Grant Admin Consent for Role

Available for both Prowler App and Prowler CLI

Authentication flag for CLI: --sp-env-auth

Authenticate using the Service Principal Application by configuring the following environment variables:

export AZURE_CLIENT_ID="XXXXXXXXX"
export AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET="XXXXXXXXX"
export AZURE_TENANT_ID="XXXXXXXXX"

If these variables are not set or exported, execution using --sp-env-auth will fail.

Refer to the Step-by-Step Permission Assignment section below for setup instructions.

If the external API permissions described in the mentioned section above are not added only checks that work through MS Graph will be executed. This means that the full provider will not be executed.

Note

In order to scan all the checks from M365 required permissions to the service principal application must be added. Refer to the PowerShell Module Permissions section for more information.

Service Principal and User Credentials Authentication

Available for both Prowler App and Prowler CLI

Authentication flag for CLI: --env-auth

Warning

This method is not recommended and will be deprecated in October 2025. Use the Service Principal Application authentication method instead.

This method builds upon Service Principal authentication by adding User Credentials. Configure the following environment variables: M365_USER and M365_PASSWORD.

export AZURE_CLIENT_ID="XXXXXXXXX"
export AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET="XXXXXXXXX"
export AZURE_TENANT_ID="XXXXXXXXX"
export M365_USER="[email protected]"
export M365_PASSWORD="examplepassword"

These two new environment variables are required in this authentication method to execute the PowerShell modules needed to retrieve information from M365 services. Prowler uses Service Principal authentication to access Microsoft Graph and user credentials to authenticate to Microsoft PowerShell modules.

  • M365_USER should be your Microsoft account email using the assigned domain in the tenant. This means it must look like [email protected] or [email protected], but it must be the exact domain assigned to that user in the tenant.

    Warning

    Newly created users must sign in with the account first, as Microsoft prompts for password change. Without completing this step, user authentication fails because Microsoft marks the initial password as expired.

    Warning

    The user must not be MFA capable. Microsoft does not allow MFA capable users to authenticate programmatically. See Microsoft documentation for more information.

    Warning

    Using a tenant domain other than the one assigned — even if it belongs to the same tenant — will cause Prowler to fail, as Microsoft authentication will not succeed.

    Ensure the correct domain is used for the authenticating user.

    User Domains

  • M365_PASSWORD must be the user password.

    Note

    Previously an encrypted password was required, but now the user password is accepted directly. Prowler handles the password encryption.

Interactive Browser Authentication

Available only for Prowler CLI

Authentication flag: --browser-auth

Authenticate against Azure using the default browser to start the scan. The --tenant-id flag is also required.

These credentials only enable checks that rely on Microsoft Graph. The entire provider cannot be run with this method. To perform a full M365 security scan, use the recommended authentication method.

Since this is a delegated permission authentication method, necessary permissions should be assigned to the user rather than the application.

Supported PowerShell Versions

PowerShell is required to run certain M365 checks.

Supported versions: - PowerShell 7.4 or higher (7.5 is recommended)

Why Is PowerShell 7.4+ Required?

  • PowerShell 5.1 (default on some Windows systems) does not support required cmdlets.
  • Older cross-platform PowerShell versions are unsupported, leading to potential errors.
Note

Installing PowerShell is only necessary if you install Prowler via pip or other sources. SDK and API containers include PowerShell by default.

Installing PowerShell

Installing PowerShell is different depending on your OS:

Windows: PowerShell must be updated to version 7.4+ for Prowler to function properly. Otherwise, some checks will not show findings and the provider may not function properly. This version of PowerShell is supported on Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016 and higher versions.

winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell --source winget

MacOS: installing PowerShell on MacOS needs to have installed brew, once installed, simply run the command shown above, Pwsh is only supported in macOS 15 (Sequoia) x64 and Arm64, macOS 14 (Sonoma) x64 and Arm64, macOS 13 (Ventura) x64 and Arm64

brew install powershell/tap/powershell

Once it's installed run pwsh on your terminal to verify it's working.

Ubuntu: The required version for installing PowerShell +7.4 on Ubuntu are Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04. The recommended way to install it is downloading the package available on PMC.

Follow these steps:

###################################
# Prerequisites

# Update the list of packages
sudo apt-get update

# Install pre-requisite packages.
sudo apt-get install -y wget apt-transport-https software-properties-common

# Get the version of Ubuntu
source /etc/os-release

# Download the Microsoft repository keys
wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/$VERSION_ID/packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Register the Microsoft repository keys
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Delete the Microsoft repository keys file
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Update the list of packages after we added packages.microsoft.com
sudo apt-get update

###################################
# Install PowerShell
sudo apt-get install -y powershell

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

Alpine: The only supported version for installing PowerShell +7.4 on Alpine is Alpine 3.20. The unique way to install it is downloading the tar.gz package available on PowerShell github.

Follow these steps:

# Install the requirements
sudo apk add --no-cache \
    ca-certificates \
    less \
    ncurses-terminfo-base \
    krb5-libs \
    libgcc \
    libintl \
    libssl3 \
    libstdc++ \
    tzdata \
    userspace-rcu \
    zlib \
    icu-libs \
    curl

apk -X https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main add --no-cache \
    lttng-ust \
    openssh-client \

# Download the powershell '.tar.gz' archive
curl -L https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.5.0/powershell-7.5.0-linux-musl-x64.tar.gz -o /tmp/powershell.tar.gz

# Create the target folder where powershell will be placed
sudo mkdir -p /opt/microsoft/powershell/7

# Expand powershell to the target folder
sudo tar zxf /tmp/powershell.tar.gz -C /opt/microsoft/powershell/7

# Set execute permissions
sudo chmod +x /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/pwsh

# Create the symbolic link that points to pwsh
sudo ln -s /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/pwsh /usr/bin/pwsh

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

Debian: The required version for installing PowerShell +7.4 on Debian are Debian 11 and Debian 12. The recommended way to install it is downloading the package available on PMC.

Follow these steps:

###################################
# Prerequisites

# Update the list of packages
sudo apt-get update

# Install pre-requisite packages.
sudo apt-get install -y wget

# Get the version of Debian
source /etc/os-release

# Download the Microsoft repository GPG keys
wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/$VERSION_ID/packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Register the Microsoft repository GPG keys
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Delete the Microsoft repository GPG keys file
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Update the list of packages after we added packages.microsoft.com
sudo apt-get update

###################################
# Install PowerShell
sudo apt-get install -y powershell

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

Rhel: The required version for installing PowerShell +7.4 on Red Hat are RHEL 8 and RHEL 9. The recommended way to install it is downloading the package available on PMC.

Follow these steps:

###################################
# Prerequisites

# Get version of RHEL
source /etc/os-release
if [ ${VERSION_ID%.*} -lt 8 ]
then majorver=7
elif [ ${VERSION_ID%.*} -lt 9 ]
then majorver=8
else majorver=9
fi

# Download the Microsoft RedHat repository package
curl -sSL -O https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/$majorver/packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

# Register the Microsoft RedHat repository
sudo rpm -i packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

# Delete the downloaded package after installing
rm packages-microsoft-prod.rpm

# Update package index files
sudo dnf update
# Install PowerShell
sudo dnf install powershell -y

Docker: The following command download the latest stable versions of PowerShell:

docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:9.0

To start an interactive shell of Pwsh you just need to run:

docker run -it mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:9.0 pwsh

Required PowerShell Modules

Prowler relies on several PowerShell cmdlets to retrieve necessary data. These cmdlets come from different modules that must be installed.

Automatic Installation

The required modules are automatically installed when running Prowler with the --init-modules flag.

Example command:

python3 prowler-cli.py m365 --verbose --log-level ERROR --env-auth --init-modules
If the modules are already installed, running this command will not cause issues—it will simply verify that the necessary modules are available.

Note

Prowler installs the modules using -Scope CurrentUser. If you encounter any issues with services not working after the automatic installation, try installing the modules manually using -Scope AllUsers (administrator permissions are required for this). The command needed to install a module manually is: 

Install-Module -Name "ModuleName" -Scope AllUsers -Force

Modules Version

  • ExchangeOnlineManagement (Minimum version: 3.6.0) Required for checks across Exchange, Defender, and Purview.
  • MicrosoftTeams (Minimum version: 6.6.0) Required for all Teams checks.
  • MSAL.PS: Required for Exchange module via application authentication.
  • MSAL.PS: Required for Exchange module via application authentication.