Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure: Create Cloud Instance T1578.002

Tactic: Defense Impairment

An adversary may create a new instance or virtual machine (VM) within the compute service of a cloud account to evade defenses. Creating a new instance may allow an adversary to bypass firewall rules and permissions that exist on instances currently residing within an account. An adversary may Create Snapshot of one or more volumes in an account, create a new instance, mount the snapshots, and then apply a less restrictive security policy to collect Data from Local System or for Remote Data Staging.

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 5 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (16 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
data_stream.dataset2eq 2aws.cloudtrail, azure.activitylogs
event.outcome2eq 1, in 1success, Success
All_Changes.action1eq 1created
EventType1in 1RestoreDBInstanceFromDBSnapshot, RestoreDBInstanceFromS3
OperationName1eq 1Library.AgentPoolCreated, Library.AgentPoolDeleted
PoolType1eq 1Self Hosted
Provider_Name1eq 1rds.amazonaws.com
azure.activitylogs.identity.authorization.evidence.principal_type1eq 1User
azure.activitylogs.operation_name1eq 1MICROSOFT.COMPUTE/VIRTUALMACHINES/EXTENSIONS/WRITE
azure.resource.id1contains 1/dsc/, customscriptextension, microsoftmonitoringagent
enough_data1eq 11
firstTimeSeenInstanceType1gt 1, is_null 1
instance_type1ne 1unknown
namespace1in 1gke-system, kube-node-lease, kube-public
subresource1is_null 1

Top indicator values (27 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
All_Changes.actioneq
created
111
EventTypein
RestoreDBInstanceFromDBSnapshot
1
EventTypein
RestoreDBInstanceFromS3
1
OperationNameeq
Library.AgentPoolCreated
1
OperationNameeq
Library.AgentPoolDeleted
1
PoolTypeeq
Self Hosted
1
Provider_Nameeq
rds.amazonaws.com
19
azure.activitylogs.identity.authorization.evidence.principal_typeeq
User
12
azure.activitylogs.operation_nameeq
MICROSOFT.COMPUTE/VIRTUALMACHINES/EXTENSIONS/WRITE
1
azure.resource.idcontains
/dsc/
1
azure.resource.idcontains
customscriptextension
1
azure.resource.idcontains
microsoftmonitoringagent
1
azure.resource.idcontains
runcommandlinux
1
azure.resource.idcontains
runcommandwindows
1
azure.resource.idcontains
vmaccessagent
1
data_stream.dataseteq
aws.cloudtrail
1141
data_stream.dataseteq
azure.activitylogs
134
enough_dataeq
1
110
event.outcomeeq
success
1251
event.outcomein
Success
137
event.outcomein
success
138
instance_typene
unknown
1
namespacein
gke-system
1
namespacein
kube-node-lease
1
namespacein
kube-public
1
namespacein
kube-system
1
usernamecontains
serviceaccount
124

Exclusions (8 distinct)

Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
resourcene
pods
1
responseStatus.codege
1
1
responseStatus.codege
400
1
responseStatus.codele
16
1
usernamein
aksService
1
usernamein
masterclient
1
usernamestarts_with
system:
1
verbne
create
1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Elastic 2 rules

Splunk 1 rule

Kusto 1 rule

Panther 1 rule