Root Password Changed

Severity: high
Log types: AWS.CloudTrail
Tags: AWS, Identity and Access Management, Persistence:Account Manipulation
Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_passwords_change-root.html
Source: github.com/panther-labs/panther-analysis

Someone manually changed the Root console login password.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Persistence	`T1098` Account Manipulation

Rule body yaml

AnalysisType: rule
Filename: aws_root_password_changed.py
RuleID: "AWS.CloudTrail.RootPasswordChanged"
DisplayName: "Root Password Changed"
Enabled: true
LogTypes:
  - AWS.CloudTrail
Tags:
  - AWS
  - Identity and Access Management
  - Persistence:Account Manipulation
Severity: High
Reports:
  MITRE ATT&CK:
    - TA0003:T1098
Description: >
  Someone manually changed the Root console login password.
Runbook: >
  Verify that the root password change was authorized. If not, AWS support should be contacted immediately as the root account cannot be recovered through normal means and grants complete access to the account.
Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_passwords_change-root.html
SummaryAttributes:
  - userAgent
  - sourceIpAddress
  - recipientAccountId
  - p_any_aws_arns
Tests:
  - Name: Root Password Changed
    ExpectedResult: true
    Log:
      {
        "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
        "eventID": "1111",
        "eventName": "PasswordUpdated",
        "eventSource": "signin.amazonaws.com",
        "eventTime": "2019-01-01T00:00:00Z",
        "eventType": "AwsConsoleSignIn",
        "eventVersion": "1.05",
        "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
        "requestID": "1111",
        "requestParameters": null,
        "responseElements": { "PasswordUpdated": "Success" },
        "sourceIPAddress": "111.111.111.111",
        "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_14_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/77.0.3865.120 Safari/537.36",
        "userIdentity":
          {
            "accesKeyId": "1111",
            "accessKeyId": "",
            "accountId": "123456789012",
            "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
            "principalId": "123456789012",
            "type": "Root",
          },
      }
  - Name: Root Password Change Failed
    ExpectedResult: false
    Log:
      {
        "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
        "eventID": "1111",
        "eventName": "PasswordUpdated",
        "eventSource": "signin.amazonaws.com",
        "eventTime": "2019-01-01T00:00:00Z",
        "eventType": "AwsConsoleSignIn",
        "eventVersion": "1.05",
        "recipientAccountId": "123456789012",
        "requestID": "1111",
        "requestParameters": null,
        "responseElements": { "PasswordUpdated": "Failure" },
        "sourceIPAddress": "111.111.111.111",
        "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_14_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/77.0.3865.120 Safari/537.36",
        "userIdentity":
          {
            "accesKeyId": "1111",
            "accessKeyId": "",
            "accountId": "123456789012",
            "arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root",
            "principalId": "123456789012",
            "type": "Root",
          },
      }

Detection logic

Condition

eventName eq "PasswordUpdated"
userIdentity.type eq "Root"
responseElements.PasswordUpdated eq "Success"

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.

Field	Kind	Values
`eventName`	eq	`PasswordUpdated`
`responseElements.PasswordUpdated`	eq	`Success`
`userIdentity.type`	eq	`Root`

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.

Field
`eventName`
`eventSource`
`awsRegion`
`recipientAccountId`
`sourceIPAddress`
`userAgent`
`userIdentity`

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`type:`	`events` / `rules` / `providers`
`vendor:`	`sigma` / `elastic` / `splunk` / `kusto` / `chronicle` (vendor name alone also works: `sigma:`, `kql:`, `secops:`…)
`tactic:`	TA-id, slug, or name: `credential_access`, `TA0006`
`technique:`	technique or sub-technique ID: `T1003`, `T1003.001` (alias `tech:`)
`severity:`	`critical` / `high` / `medium` / `low` / `informational` (alias `sev:`)
`risk_score`	Numeric comparison on the Elastic risk score (0 to 100): `risk_score>50`, `risk_score<=20`, `risk_score=99` (alias `risk`; Elastic rules only)
`stages:`	Rules with exactly N pipeline stages
`correlation:`	`single_event` / `sequence` / `alternatives` / `alternatives_cross_log` / `all_required` / `correlated`
`with:`	Co-occurrence event-id; stacks (`with:4624 with:4769`) to require all, while a comma list in one occurrence (`with:4624,4769`) is an either-or group. Implies multi-event
`like:`	Structural neighbors of a rule slug (equivalents + subsumption stricter / broader): `like:comsvcs_lsass_memory_dump-splunk-sysmon`
`groupby:`	Entity-grouping substring match against `group_by_keys`: `groupby:user`, `groupby:host`
`uses:`	Rules whose predicate tree touches the field (any kind, any value): `uses:CommandLine`
`excludes:`	Rules with top-level `not()` clauses on the field (FP whitelists): `excludes:ParentImage`
`field:` / `value:`	Predicate search; narrows rule cards to those with a matching leaf and drives the indicator tier. Unquoted = substring, wildcards allowed (`value:mimikatz`)
`indicator:`	Shorthand for `field:F value:V`: `indicator:Image=*\powershell.exe`
`kind:`	Filter by predicate kind. Narrows rule cards to those carrying a matching predicate leaf (`vendor:elastic kind:cidr_match`) and drives the indicator tier: `contains` / `starts_with` / `ends_with` / `regex` / `cidr` / `eq` / `in` … (operator aliases `op:`/`match:`)
`has:` / `no:`	`sample`, `field`, `notes`, `refs`, `trace`, `thirdparty`, `rule`, `pattern`, `timewindow`, `threshold`, `newterms`, `sigma`/`elastic`/`splunk`/`kusto`/`chronicle`
`-op:val`	Exclude matches; works on most operators but not `type:`/`like:`/`has:`/`no:` (use `no:<flag>` to exclude a rule flag): `tactic:execution -vendor:splunk`. Standalone `-kind:`/`-field:`/`-value:` drop every rule carrying a matching predicate leaf (`type:rules -kind:is_null`)
`field:"…"` / `value:"…"`	Quoted value = anchored exact match (also allows spaces): `value:"net user"`
`a,b`	Comma = OR inside one operator (`vendor:sigma,elastic`, `severity:high,critical`); repeating a facet merges the same way. `field:`/`value:` never split (literal commas)
`vendors:` / `stage:`	Singular and plural spellings fold to the canonical operator and value: `tactics:` = `tactic:`, `type:event` = `type:events`, `correlation:sequences` = `correlation:sequence`, `has:thresholds` = `has:threshold`
`"quoted phrase"`	Exact-match a multi-word phrase (free text)