Detection rules › Kusto

AWSCloudTrail - Created CRUD S3 policy and then privilege escalation

Status
available
Severity
medium
Time window
1d
Group by
AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, EventName, EventSource, PolicyName, RecipientAccountId, SourceIpAddress, UserIdentityArn, UserIdentityType
Source
github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel

Identifies creation of IAM policies that grant broad Amazon S3 CRUD permissions, followed by policy attachment activity to users, roles, or groups. This sequence can indicate attempts to expand access and should be investigated as potential cloud privilege escalation.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Rules detecting the same action

Other rules on this platform that filter on the same API call or operation.

Rule body kusto

id: 467cbe7e-e6d4-4f4e-8e44-84dd01932c32
name: AWSCloudTrail - Created CRUD S3 policy and then privilege escalation
description: |
  Identifies creation of IAM policies that grant broad Amazon S3 CRUD permissions, followed by policy attachment activity to users, roles, or groups. This sequence can indicate attempts to
  expand access and should be investigated as potential cloud privilege escalation.
severity: Medium
status: Available
requiredDataConnectors:
  - connectorId: AWS
    dataTypes:
      - AWSCloudTrail
queryFrequency: 1d
queryPeriod: 1d
triggerOperator: gt
triggerThreshold: 0
tactics:
  - DefenseEvasion
  - PrivilegeEscalation
  - Persistence
relevantTechniques:
  - T1484
  - T1098.003
query: |
  let EventNameList = dynamic(["AttachUserPolicy","AttachRolePolicy","AttachGroupPolicy"]);
  let createPolicy =  dynamic(["CreatePolicy", "CreatePolicyVersion"]);
  let timeframe = 1d;
  let lookback = 14d;
  // Creating Master table with all the events to use with materialize for better performance
  let EventInfo = AWSCloudTrail
  | where TimeGenerated >= ago(lookback)
  | where EventName in (EventNameList) or EventName in (createPolicy)
  | extend UserIdentityArn = iif(isempty(UserIdentityArn), tostring(parse_json(Resources)[0].ARN), UserIdentityArn)
  | extend UserName = tostring(split(UserIdentityArn, '/')[-1])
  | extend AccountName = case( UserIdentityPrincipalid == "Anonymous", "Anonymous", isempty(UserIdentityUserName), UserName, UserIdentityUserName)
  | extend AccountName = iif(AccountName contains "@", tostring(split(AccountName, '@', 0)[0]), AccountName),
    AccountUPNSuffix = iif(AccountName contains "@", tostring(split(AccountName, '@', 1)[0]), "");
  //Checking for Policy creation event with Full Admin Privileges since lookback period.
  let FullAdminPolicyEvents =  materialize(  EventInfo
  | where TimeGenerated >= ago(lookback)
  | where EventName in (createPolicy)
  | extend PolicyName = tostring(parse_json(RequestParameters).policyName)
  | extend Statement = parse_json(tostring((parse_json(RequestParameters).policyDocument))).Statement
  | mvexpand Statement
  | extend Action = parse_json(Statement).Action , Effect = tostring(parse_json(Statement).Effect), Resource = tostring(parse_json(Statement).Resource), Condition = tostring(parse_json(Statement).Condition)
  | extend Action = tostring(Action)
  | where Effect =~ "Allow" and (Action contains "s3:Create" and Action contains "s3:Get" and Action contains "s3:Put" and Action contains "s3:Delete") and Resource == "*" and Condition == ""
  | distinct TimeGenerated, EventName, PolicyName, SourceIpAddress, UserIdentityArn, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix
  | project-rename StartTime = TimeGenerated  );
  let PolicyAttach = materialize(  EventInfo
  | where TimeGenerated >= ago(timeframe)
  | where EventName in (EventNameList) and isempty(ErrorCode) and isempty(ErrorMessage)
  | extend PolicyName = tostring(split(tostring(parse_json(RequestParameters).policyArn),"/")[1])
  | summarize AttachEventCount=count(), StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated) by EventSource, EventName, UserIdentityType , UserIdentityArn, SourceIpAddress, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, PolicyName
  | extend AttachEvent = pack("StartTime", StartTime, "EndTime", EndTime, "EventName", EventName, "UserIdentityType",   UserIdentityType, "SourceIpAddress", SourceIpAddress, "AccountName", AccountName, "AccountUPNSuffix", AccountUPNSuffix, "RecipientAccountId", RecipientAccountId, "UserIdentityArn", UserIdentityArn)
  | project EventSource, PolicyName, AttachEvent, AttachEventCount, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix
  );
  // Joining the list of PolicyNames and checking if it has been attached to any Roles/Users/Groups.
  // These Roles/Users/Groups will be Privileged and can be used by adversaries as pivot point for privilege escalation via multiple ways.
  FullAdminPolicyEvents
  | join kind=leftouter
  (
      PolicyAttach
  )
  on PolicyName
  | project-away PolicyName1
entityMappings:
  - entityType: Account
    fieldMappings:
      - identifier: Name
        columnName: AccountName
      - identifier: UPNSuffix
        columnName: AccountUPNSuffix
      - identifier: CloudAppAccountId
        columnName: RecipientAccountId
  - entityType: IP
    fieldMappings:
      - identifier: Address
        columnName: SourceIpAddress
customDetails:
  PolicyName: PolicyName
  EventName: EventName
  RecipientAccountId: RecipientAccountId
  UserIdentityArn: UserIdentityArn
alertDetailsOverride:
  alertDisplayNameFormat: 'AWS S3 privilege escalation policy activity: {{PolicyName}} by {{AccountName}}'
  alertDescriptionFormat: 'Detected {{EventName}} for policy {{PolicyName}} in account {{RecipientAccountId}}.'
version: 1.0.3
kind: Scheduled

Stages and Predicates

Parameters

let EventNameList = dynamic(["AttachUserPolicy","AttachRolePolicy","AttachGroupPolicy"]);
let createPolicy = dynamic(["CreatePolicy", "CreatePolicyVersion"]);
let timeframe = 1d;
let lookback = 14d;

Let binding: PolicyAttach

let PolicyAttach = materialize(  EventInfo
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(timeframe)
| where EventName in (EventNameList) and isempty(ErrorCode) and isempty(ErrorMessage)
| extend PolicyName = tostring(split(tostring(parse_json(RequestParameters).policyArn),"/")[1])
| summarize AttachEventCount=count(), StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated) by EventSource, EventName, UserIdentityType , UserIdentityArn, SourceIpAddress, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, PolicyName
| extend AttachEvent = pack("StartTime", StartTime, "EndTime", EndTime, "EventName", EventName, "UserIdentityType",   UserIdentityType, "SourceIpAddress", SourceIpAddress, "AccountName", AccountName, "AccountUPNSuffix", AccountUPNSuffix, "RecipientAccountId", RecipientAccountId, "UserIdentityArn", UserIdentityArn)
| project EventSource, PolicyName, AttachEvent, AttachEventCount, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix
);

Derived from EventNameList, timeframe, EventInfo.

Stage 1: source

EventInfo

Stage 2: where

where ...

Stage 3: where

where EventName in~ ("CreatePolicy", "CreatePolicyVersion")

Stage 4: extend

extend PolicyName

Stage 5: extend

extend Statement

Stage 6: mv-expand

mv-expand Statement

Stage 7: extend

extend Action, Condition, Effect, Resource

Stage 8: extend

extend Action

Stage 9: where

where Action contains "s3:Create" and Action contains "s3:Delete" and Action contains "s3:Get" and Action contains "s3:Put" and Condition =~ "" and Effect =~ "Allow" and Resource == "*"

Stage 10: distinct

distinct AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, EventName, PolicyName, RecipientAccountId, SourceIpAddress, TimeGenerated, UserIdentityArn

Stage 11: project-rename

project-rename

Stage 12: join

join kind=leftouter (...)

Stage 13: project-away

project-away PolicyName1

Stage 14: summarize

summarize by EventSource, EventName, UserIdentityType, UserIdentityArn, SourceIpAddress, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, PolicyName

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

FieldKindValues
Actioncontains
  • s3:Create
  • s3:Delete
  • s3:Get
  • s3:Put
Effecteq
  • Allow
ErrorCodeis_null
  • (no value, null check)
ErrorMessageis_null
  • (no value, null check)
EventNamein
  • AttachGroupPolicy transforms: cased
  • AttachRolePolicy transforms: cased
  • AttachUserPolicy transforms: cased
  • CreatePolicy transforms: cased
  • CreatePolicyVersion transforms: cased
Resourceeq
  • * transforms: cased

Output fields

Fields the rule emits when it matches. Chronicle authors list these in the outcome block; they appear on the detection and $risk_score drives alerting. Sentinel / Defender XDR rules build them up through project / summarize / extend stages. Sentinel maps these into alert fields via entityMappings and customDetails; Defender XDR custom detections surface them as alert fields directly.

FieldSource
AccountNamesummarize
AccountUPNSuffixsummarize
EventNamesummarize
EventSourcesummarize
PolicyNamesummarize
RecipientAccountIdsummarize
SourceIpAddresssummarize
UserIdentityArnsummarize
UserIdentityTypesummarize