IAM Admin Policy Attached

Status: test
Severity: critical
Log source: product aws, service cloudtrail
Author: nishikawaakira (@nishikawaakira)
Source: github.com/Yamato-Security/suzaku-rules

Detects when an administrative IAM policy (AdministratorAccess, PowerUserAccess, or IAMFullAccess) is attached to a user, group, or role. This is a privilege escalation technique where an attacker elevates permissions of a compromised or newly created principal to gain full control of the AWS account.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Persistence	`T1098.003` Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles
Privilege Escalation	`T1098.003` Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles

Event coverage

Provider	Event
AWS-iam	AttachGroupPolicy
AWS-iam	AttachRolePolicy
AWS-iam	AttachUserPolicy

Rules detecting the same action

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

AWS Compromised IAM Key Quarantine (Panther)
AWS IAM AdministratorAccess Policy Attached to Group (Elastic)
AWS IAM AdministratorAccess Policy Attached to Role (Elastic)
AWS IAM AdministratorAccess Policy Attached to User (Elastic)
AWS IAM Customer-Managed Policy Attached to Role by Rare User (Elastic)
AWS IAM Sensitive Operations via Lambda Execution Role (Elastic)
AWS Sensitive IAM Operations Performed via CloudShell (Elastic)
IAM Policy Attachment Attempt (Sigma)

Rule body yaml

title: IAM Admin Policy Attached
id: 0a1b2c3d-4e5f-6a7b-8c9d-0e1f2a3b4c5d
status: test
description: |
    Detects when an administrative IAM policy (AdministratorAccess,
    PowerUserAccess, or IAMFullAccess) is attached to a user, group, or role.
    This is a privilege escalation technique where an attacker elevates
    permissions of a compromised or newly created principal to gain full
    control of the AWS account.
references:
    - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/003/
    - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/APIReference/API_AttachUserPolicy.html
    - https://hackingthe.cloud/aws/exploitation/iam_privilege_escalation/
author: nishikawaakira (@nishikawaakira)
date: 2026-05-03
modified: 2026-05-29
tags:
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.persistence
    - attack.t1098.003
logsource:
    product: aws
    service: cloudtrail
detection:
    selection:
        eventSource: iam.amazonaws.com
        eventName:
            - AttachUserPolicy
            - AttachGroupPolicy
            - AttachRolePolicy
    selection_admin:
        requestParameters.policyArn|contains:
            - AdministratorAccess
            - PowerUserAccess
            - IAMFullAccess
    filter:
        errorCode|exists: true
    condition: selection and selection_admin and not filter
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate IAM administrators granting access during onboarding
    - Infrastructure-as-code deployments (Terraform, CloudFormation)
level: critical

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection and selection_admin and not filter

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    eventSource: iam.amazonaws.com
    eventName:
        - AttachUserPolicy
        - AttachGroupPolicy
        - AttachRolePolicy

Stage 2: `selection_admin`

selection_admin:
    requestParameters.policyArn|contains:
        - AdministratorAccess
        - PowerUserAccess
        - IAMFullAccess

Stage 3: `not filter`

filter:
    errorCode|exists: true

Exclusions

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

Field	Kind	Excluded values
`errorCode`	is_not_null	(no value, null check)

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	`AttachGroupPolicy` `AttachRolePolicy` `AttachUserPolicy`
`eventSource`	eq	`iam.amazonaws.com`
`requestParameters.policyArn`	match	`AdministratorAccess` `IAMFullAccess` `PowerUserAccess`

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`f`	Follow link (`Shift` = new tab)
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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)

IAM Admin Policy Attached

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Event coverage

Rules detecting the same action

Rule body yaml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection`

Stage 2: `selection_admin`

Stage 3: `not filter`

Exclusions

Indicators

Keyboard shortcuts

Search operators

IAM Admin Policy Attached

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Event coverage

Rules detecting the same action

Rule body yaml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

Stage 1: selection

Stage 2: selection_admin

Stage 3: not filter

Exclusions

Indicators

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection`

Stage 2: `selection_admin`

Stage 3: `not filter`