Suspicious IMDS IAM Credential Retrieval From Container Workload
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-06-02
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
Initial Access → Cred AccessRecon
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 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
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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