Suspicious AWS Long-Term Access Key Creation for Persistence via CloudTrail (via aws)

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1098.001Additional Cloud Credentials
Priv Esc
- T1098.001Additional Cloud Credentials
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the creation of a long-term IAM access key, which adversaries generate as a backup AKIA credential to maintain persistent access to a compromised AWS account per Red Canary. Key creation for a user other than the caller, or immediately following STS token abuse, is a strong indicator that an attacker is establishing durable persistence.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1098.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Credential Addition to Entra Application via Azure Audit Logs

Suspicious IAM Persistence and Privilege Escalation Actions

Suspicious MURKY PANDA Credential Addition to Entra ID Service Principal (via azure)

Suspicious IAM Access Key Creation for Persistence (via cloudtrail)

Suspicious AWS Administrator Policy Attachment via CloudTrail (via aws)

Suspicious AWS Inline Policy Granting Full S3 Access

Suspicious GCP Service Account Key Creation for Persistence (via gcp.audit)

Malicious Credential Added to an Azure AD Application (via auditlogs)

Suspicious Credential Added to Existing Application for OAuth Persistence in Entra ID (via azure auditlogs)

Suspicious AWS Long-Term Access Key Creation for Persistence via CloudTrail (via aws)

Pivot detection · T1098.001 · 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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