CHAIN-200 — Azure DevOps variable group with unencrypted secret + no approval

Summary

Severity: High · Likelihood: High · Logic: ALL

Why this chain matters

An Azure DevOps variable group stores production secrets as plain (not locked) variables. Any user with contributor on the project reads them. There is no approval workflow to access the production variable group.

Component rules

This chain fires when its trigger conditions are met by the following rules. Click any rule to see its detection logic and compliance mappings.

Rule ID	Role
zt_wl_017	Trigger
zt_id_019	Trigger

Attack walkthrough

Step 1 — View variable group values in the portal.

Actor: Project contributor
MITRE ATT&CK: T1552.001
Enabled by: zt_wl_017

Attacker gain: Production secrets.

Step 2 — Authenticate with stolen secrets to backend systems.

Actor: Attacker
MITRE ATT&CK: T1078
Enabled by: zt_id_019

Attacker gain: Cross-system compromise.

Blast radius

Initial access	Azure DevOps contributor.
Max privilege	Whatever secrets unlock.
Data at risk	Any backend the secrets reach
Services at risk	Every system referenced in the variable group

How the logic works

The chain fires only when every rule above has at least one finding in the current scan. Missing any one rule breaks the chain — so remediating any single step disrupts the attack path.