GCP Service Account or Keys Created

Severity: low
Entities: emails, ip_addresses
Log types: GCP.AuditLog
Reference: https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/keys-create-delete
Source: github.com/panther-labs/panther-analysis

Detects when a service account or key is created manually by a user instead of an automated workflow.

Rule body yaml

AnalysisType: rule
Description: Detects when a service account or key is created manually by a user instead of an automated workflow.
DisplayName: "GCP Service Account or Keys Created "
Enabled: true
Filename: gcp_service_account_or_keys_created.py
Reference: https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/keys-create-delete
Severity: Low
Tests:
  - ExpectedResult: true
    Log:
      insertId: 1iyadj0d5bmj
      logName: projects/gcp-project1/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity
      p_any_ip_addresses:
        - 1.2.3.4
      p_event_time: "2023-03-09 15:50:36.148"
      p_log_type: GCP.AuditLog
      p_parse_time: "2023-03-09 15:52:14.605"
      p_row_id: eee460dd2ac5b8a9a6cdfded16ff75
      p_source_id: 4fc88a5a-2d51-4279-9c4a-08fa7cc52566
      p_source_label: gcplogsource
      protoPayload:
        at_sign_type: type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.audit.AuditLog
        authenticationInfo:
          principalEmail: staging@company.io
          principalSubject: user:staging@company.io
        authorizationInfo:
          - granted: true
            permission: iam.serviceAccountKeys.create
            resource: projects/-/serviceAccounts/123456789098765434567
            resourceAttributes:
              name: projects/-/serviceAccounts/123456789098765434567
        methodName: google.iam.admin.v1.CreateServiceAccountKey
        request:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/google.iam.admin.v1.CreateServiceAccountKeyRequest
          name: projects/gcp-project1/serviceAccounts/123456789098765434567
          private_key_type: 2
        requestMetadata:
          callerIP: 1.2.3.4
          callerSuppliedUserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/110.0.0.0 Safari/537.36,gzip(gfe)
          destinationAttributes: {}
          requestAttributes:
            auth: {}
            time: "2023-03-09T15:50:36.163986905Z"
        resourceName: projects/-/serviceAccounts/123456789098765434567
        response:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/google.iam.admin.v1.ServiceAccountKey
          key_algorithm: 2
          key_origin: 2
          key_type: 1
          name: projects/gcp-project1/serviceAccounts/created-service-account@gcp-project1.iam.gserviceaccount.com/keys/69049163b190437ab9279b28e8afa24bb5c5b076
          private_key_type: 2
          valid_after_time:
            seconds: 1.678377036e+09
          valid_before_time:
            seconds: 2.53402300799e+11
        serviceName: iam.googleapis.com
        status: {}
      receiveTimestamp: "2023-03-09 15:50:37.603"
      resource:
        labels:
          email_id: created-service-account@gcp-project1.iam.gserviceaccount.com
          project_id: gcp-project1
          unique_id: "123456789098765434567"
        type: service_account
      severity: NOTICE
      timestamp: "2023-03-09 15:50:36.148"
    Name: Created Service Account Key
  - ExpectedResult: true
    Log:
      insertId: 1iyadj0d5bcq
      logName: projects/gcp-project1/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity
      p_any_ip_addresses:
        - 1.2.3.4
      p_event_time: "2023-03-09 15:49:21.715"
      p_log_type: GCP.AuditLog
      p_parse_time: "2023-03-09 15:50:14.612"
      p_row_id: 9a08afb7bb84d9eef3d98cee16b306
      p_source_id: 4fc88a5a-2d51-4279-9c4a-08fa7cc52566
      p_source_label: gcplogsource
      protoPayload:
        at_sign_type: type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.audit.AuditLog
        authenticationInfo:
          principalEmail: staging@company.io
          principalSubject: user:staging@company.io
        authorizationInfo:
          - granted: true
            permission: iam.serviceAccounts.create
            resource: projects/gcp-project1
            resourceAttributes: {}
        methodName: google.iam.admin.v1.CreateServiceAccount
        request:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/google.iam.admin.v1.CreateServiceAccountRequest
          account_id: created-service-account
          name: projects/gcp-project1
          service_account:
            description: sa created
            display_name: created-service-account
        requestMetadata:
          callerIP: 1.2.3.4
          callerSuppliedUserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/110.0.0.0 Safari/537.36,gzip(gfe)
          destinationAttributes: {}
          requestAttributes:
            auth: {}
            time: "2023-03-09T15:49:21.729005262Z"
        resourceName: projects/gcp-project1
        response:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/google.iam.admin.v1.ServiceAccount
          description: sa with limited permissions
          display_name: created-service-account
          email: created-service-account@gcp-project1.iam.gserviceaccount.com
          etag: MDEwMjE5MjA=
          name: projects/gcp-project1/serviceAccounts/created-service-account@gcp-project1.iam.gserviceaccount.com
          oauth2_client_id: "103995727391704507722"
          project_id: gcp-project1
          unique_id: "103995727391704507722"
        serviceName: iam.googleapis.com
        status: {}
      receiveTimestamp: "2023-03-09 15:49:22.599"
      resource:
        labels:
          email_id: created-service-account@gcp-project1.iam.gserviceaccount.com
          project_id: gcp-project1
          unique_id: "103995727391704507722"
        type: service_account
      severity: NOTICE
      timestamp: "2023-03-09 15:49:21.715"
    Name: Created Service Account
  - ExpectedResult: false
    Log:
      insertId: 46ee5sd38mw
      logName: projects/gcp-project1/logs/cloudaudit.googleapis.com%2Factivity
      p_any_emails:
        - staging@company.io
      p_any_ip_addresses:
        - 1.2.3.4
      p_event_time: "2023-04-25 19:20:57.024"
      p_log_type: GCP.AuditLog
      p_parse_time: "2023-04-25 19:22:14.743"
      p_row_id: b2e9b7f5dc85a69981fac2e417b6bb03
      p_schema_version: 0
      p_source_id: 5b77391b-afad-46c7-8ddc-b8e21d4726b3
      p_source_label: gcplogsource2
      protoPayload:
        at_sign_type: type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.audit.AuditLog
        authenticationInfo:
          principalEmail: staging@company.io
        authorizationInfo:
          - granted: true
            permission: iap.webServices.setIamPolicy
            resourceAttributes:
              name: projects/123456789012/iap_web/compute/services/7312383563505470445
              service: iap.googleapis.com
              type: iap.googleapis.com/WebService
        methodName: google.cloud.iap.v1.IdentityAwareProxyAdminService.SetIamPolicy
        request:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/google.iam.v1.SetIamPolicyRequest
          policy:
            etag: BwX6LgT4YMw=
          resource: projects/123456789012/iap_web/compute/services/7312383563505470445
        requestMetadata:
          callerIP: 1.2.3.4
          callerSuppliedUserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/112.0.0.0 Safari/537.36,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe)
          destinationAttributes: {}
          requestAttributes:
            auth: {}
            time: "2023-04-25T19:20:57.295723118Z"
        resourceName: projects/123456789012/iap_web/compute/services/7312383563505470445
        response:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/google.iam.v1.Policy
          etag: BwX6LgXbpsw=
        serviceName: iap.googleapis.com
      receiveTimestamp: "2023-04-25 19:20:58.16"
      resource:
        labels:
          backend_service_id: ""
          location: ""
          project_id: gcp-project1
        type: gce_backend_service
      severity: NOTICE
      timestamp: "2023-04-25 19:20:57.024"
    Name: Other
DedupPeriodMinutes: 60
LogTypes:
  - GCP.AuditLog
RuleID: "GCP.Service.Account.or.Keys.Created"
Threshold: 1

Detection logic

Condition

resource.type eq "service_account"
protoPayload.methodName contains "CreateServiceAccount"
protoPayload.authenticationInfo.principalEmail not ends_with ".gserviceaccount.com"

Exclusions

Top-level NOT(...) conjuncts: predicates this rule actively suppresses.

Field	Kind	Excluded values
`protoPayload.authenticationInfo.principalEmail`	ends_with	`.gserviceaccount.com`

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
`protoPayload.methodName`	contains	`CreateServiceAccount`
`resource.type`	eq	`service_account`

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	Source
`principalEmail`	`protoPayload.authenticationInfo.principalEmail`
`email_id`	`resource.labels.email_id`
`project_id`	`resource.labels.project_id`

`j` / `k`	Scroll down / up
`d` / `u`	Half-page down / up
`gg` / `G`	Top / bottom
`h` / `l`	History back / forward
`f`	Follow link (`Shift` = new tab)
`/`	Focus search
`?`	Toggle this help
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate search results
`Enter`	Open highlighted result
`Esc`	Close results / dialog

`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)