Suspicious IMDS IAM Credential Retrieval From Container Workload

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Cred Access

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Execution
Persistence
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Priv Esc
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Defense Evasion
- T1078.004Cloud Accounts
Cred Access
- T1552.005Cloud Instance Metadata API
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a command line that queries the EC2 Instance Metadata Service credentials path 169.254.169.254 latest meta-data iam security-credentials to retrieve IAM role credentials. In EKS clusters where IMDSv2 is not enforced, a compromised pod uses this request to steal the worker node role credentials and escalate beyond the pod identity. This matters because it lets container workloads impersonate the underlying node and reach broader AWS permissions.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious IMDS IAM Credential Retrieval From Container Workload

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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