Microsoft Entra recommendation: Renew expiring service principal credentials (preview)

Microsoft Entra recommendations is a feature that provides you with personalized insights and actionable guidance to align your tenant with recommended best practices.

This article covers the recommendation to renew expiring service principal credentials. This recommendation is called servicePrincipalKeyExpiry in the recommendations API in Microsoft Graph.

Prerequisites

There are different role requirements for viewing or updating a recommendation. Use the least-privileged role for the type of access needed. For a full list of roles, see Least privileged roles by task.

Microsoft Entra role	Access type
Reports Reader	Read-only
Security Reader	Read-only
Global Reader	Read-only
Authentication Policy Administrator	Update and read
Exchange Administrator	Update and read
Security Administrator	Update and read
DirectoryRecommendations.Read.All	Read-only in Microsoft Graph
DirectoryRecommendations.ReadWrite.All	Update and read in Microsoft Graph

Some recommendations might require a P2 or other license. For more information, see Recommendation availability and license requirements.

Description

Service principal credentials include certificates and client secrets added to a service principal. The credentials are used to prove the identity of that service principal. If the credentials expire, the service principal can't authenticate, which can cause downtime for your business scenario. This recommendation shows up if your tenant has service principals with credentials that are expiring soon.

A service principal credential is expiring if:

• It's on a service principal AND is expiring within the next 30 days.

The following credentials are exempted from this recommendation:

• Credentials that were identified as expiring but have since been removed from the application registration.
• Credentials whose expiration date has lapsed show as completed in the list of Impacted resources.

Value

Renewing a service principal's credentials prior to their expiry date is crucial for maintaining uninterrupted operations and minimizing the risk of any downtime resulting from outdated credentials.

Action plan

This recommendation is available in the Microsoft Entra admin center and using the Microsoft Graph API.

Microsoft Entra admin center

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Security Administrator.

2. Browse to Identity > Overview.

3. Select the Recommendations tab and select the Renew expiring service principal credentials recommendation.

4. Select More Details from the Actions column.

5. From the panel that opens, select Update Credential to navigate directly to the Single sign-on area of the app registration.

   1. Alternatively, browse to Identity > Applications > App registrations and locate the application for which the credential needs to be rotated.

   

   1. Navigate to the Single sign-on section of the app registration.

6. Edit the SAML signing certificate section and follow the prompts to add a new certificate.

   

7. Once the certificate or secret is successfully added, update the SAML signing certificate configuration to make the new cert active.

8. Verify that the application works as expected then remove the inactive SAML certificate from the SAML certificates collection.

Note

If you don't have any SAML credentials configured but you received this recommendation, use the Microsoft Graph ServicePrincipalAPI endpoint to check the keyCredentials and passwordCredentials properties of the service principal object. Locate and rotate the credential.

We highly recommend changing your service so that it works with the credential defined on the backing application object instead of the service principal.

Microsoft Graph API

The following requests can be used to retrieve the recommendation and the impacted resources using the Microsoft Graph API. To use the Microsoft Graph API, you need the DirectoryRecommendations.Read.All and DirectoryRecommendations.ReadWrite.All permissions. For more information, see How to use Identity Recommendations.

When renewing service principal credentials using Microsoft Graph, you need to run a query to get the password credentials on a service principal, add a new password credential, then remove the old credentials.

1. Sign in to Graph Explorer.
2. Select GET as the HTTP method from the dropdown.

To retrieve all recommendations for your tenant:

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/directory/recommendations

From the response, find the ID of the recommendation that matches the following pattern: {tenantId}_Microsoft.Identity.IAM.Insights.servicePrincipalKeyExpiry.

To identify impacted resources:

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/directory/recommendations/{tenantId}_Microsoft.Identity.IAM.Insights.servicePrincipalKeyExpiry

To filter the list of resources based on their status, for example only resources that are marked as active:

https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/directory/recommendations/{tenantId}_Microsoft.Identity.IAM.Insights. servicePrincipalKeyExpiry/impactedResources?$filter=status eq Microsoft.Graph.recommendationStatus'active'

• Take note of the AppId, CredentialId, and the origin of the credential you want to remove.
• Use these Microsoft Graph APIs to add a new password or key credential:
  • addPassword
  • addKey
• Use these Microsoft Graph APIs to remove the old credential:
  • removePassword
  • removeKey

Sample response

{
  "id": "536279f6-15cc-45f2-be2d-61e352b51eef_Microsoft.Identity.IAM.Insights.ServicePrincipalKeyExpiry",
  "recommendationType": "servicePrincipalKeyExpiry",
  "createdDateTime": "2022-05-29T00:11:17Z",
  "impactStartDateTime": "2022-05-29T00:11:17Z",
  "postponeUntilDateTime": null,
  "lastModifiedDateTime": "2024-07-26T12:31:58Z",
  "lastModifiedBy": "System",
  "displayName": "Renew expiring service principal credentials",
  "featureAreas": [
    "applications"
  ],
  "insights": "Your tenant has service principals with credentials that will expire soon.",
  "benefits": "Renewing the service principal credential(s) before expiration ensures the application continues to function and reduces the possibility of downtime due to an expired credential.",
  "category": "identityBestPractice",
  "status": "completedBySystem",
  "priority": "high",
  "requiredLicenses": "microsoftEntraWorkloadId",
  "impactType": "apps",
  "actionSteps": [
    {
      "stepNumber": 1,
      "text": "1. Navigate to the Enterprise applications section and locate the Enterprise application for which the credential needs to be rotated."
    },
    {
      "stepNumber": 2,
      "text": "2. Navigate to the “Single sign-on” blade."
    },
    {
      "stepNumber": 3,
      "text": "3. Edit the 'SAML signing certificate' section and follow prompts to add a new certificate."
    },
    {
      "stepNumber": 4,
      "text": "4. After adding the certificate, change its properties to make certificate active. This will make the previous certificate inactive."
    },
    {
      "stepNumber": 5,
      "text": "5. Once the certificate is successfully added and activated, validate that your service is working with the new credential, and remove the old credential."
    },
    {
      "stepNumber": 6,
      "text": "6. If the service principal does not show any credentials after navigating to the enterprise apps blade, we recommend checking the 'passwordCredentials' and 'keyCredentials' property of the service principal object using PowerShell or Microsoft Graph service principal API and use the Microsoft Graph API to rotate credentials."
    }
  ]
}

Related content

• Review the Microsoft Entra recommendations overview
• Learn how to use Microsoft Entra recommendations
• Explore the Microsoft Graph API properties for recommendations
• Learn about securing service principals