Malicious Network Sniffing of Pod Identity Endpoint via tcpdump

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access → Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
- T1040Network Sniffing
- T1552.007Container API
Discovery
- T1040Network Sniffing
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects tcpdump invocations that filter traffic to the EKS Pod Identity link-local address 169.254.170.23. Wiz Research demonstrated attackers sniffing this endpoint to capture pod identity credentials in transit, so packet capture targeting this host is a strong sign of credential theft.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1552.007 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Windows Traffic Capture Abuse (via process_creation)

Malicious TCP Session Hijacking via rshijack

Suspicious Kubernetes Secret Enumeration via kubectl

Malicious EKS Pod Identity Credential Theft via Link-Local Endpoint

Kubernetes API Audit: Admission Webhook Configuration Modified

Malicious Network Sniffing of Pod Identity Endpoint via tcpdump

Pivot detection · T1552.007 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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