Suspicious ECS ExecuteCommand Lateral Movement via SSM in AWS CloudTrail (via cloudtrail)

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Execution
- T1059Command and Scripting Interpreter
Persistence
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Priv Esc
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Defense Evasion
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of ECS Exec ExecuteCommand which TeamPCP leveraged through the SSM Agent to obtain interactive shell access inside running containers after compromising cloud credentials. ECS Exec is rarely used in normal operations so unexpected invocations warrant review as potential container lateral movement.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious ECS ExecuteCommand Lateral Movement via SSM in AWS CloudTrail (via cloudtrail)

Pivot detection · T1078.004 · 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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