Suspicious EC2 Serial Console SSH Public Key Push (via cloudtrail)
- Product
- aws
- Service
- cloudtrail
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-07-23
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
Lateral MovementRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects the SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey call used to push an SSH key to an instance serial console, an uncommon access path adversaries leverage to reach hosts that block normal network SSH. Legitimate serial console use is rare, so this event strongly suggests an attacker seeking out of band interactive access to a cloud instance.
Reporting behind it
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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