Detection rules › Splunk
AWS Credential Access GetPasswordData
The following analytic identifies more than 10 GetPasswordData API calls within a 5-minute window in your AWS account. It leverages AWS CloudTrail logs to detect this activity by counting the distinct instance IDs accessed. This behavior is significant as it may indicate an attempt to retrieve encrypted administrator passwords for running Windows instances, which is a critical security concern. If confirmed malicious, attackers could gain unauthorized access to administrative credentials, potentially leading to full control over the affected instances and further compromise of the AWS environment.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Resource Development | T1586.003 Compromise Accounts: Cloud Accounts |
| Credential Access | T1110.001 Brute Force: Password Guessing |
Event coverage
| Provider | Event |
|---|---|
| AWS-ec2 | GetPasswordData |
Rules detecting the same action
Other rules on this platform that filter on the same API call or operation.
Rule body splunk
name: AWS Credential Access GetPasswordData
id: 4d347c4a-306e-41db-8d10-b46baf71b3e2
version: 11
creation_date: '2022-08-10'
modification_date: '2026-05-13'
author: Bhavin Patel, Splunk
status: production
type: Anomaly
description: The following analytic identifies more than 10 GetPasswordData API calls within a 5-minute window in your AWS account. It leverages AWS CloudTrail logs to detect this activity by counting the distinct instance IDs accessed. This behavior is significant as it may indicate an attempt to retrieve encrypted administrator passwords for running Windows instances, which is a critical security concern. If confirmed malicious, attackers could gain unauthorized access to administrative credentials, potentially leading to full control over the affected instances and further compromise of the AWS environment.
data_source:
- AWS CloudTrail GetPasswordData
search: |-
`cloudtrail` eventName=GetPasswordData eventSource = ec2.amazonaws.com
| bin _time span=5m
| rename user_name as user
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime dc(requestParameters.instanceId) as distinct_instance_ids
BY signature dest user
user_agent src vendor_account
vendor_region vendor_product
| where distinct_instance_ids > 10
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `aws_credential_access_getpassworddata_filter`
how_to_implement: You must install splunk AWS add on and Splunk App for AWS. This search works with AWS CloudTrail logs. We encourage the users to adjust the values of `distinct_instance_ids` and tweak the `span` value according to their environment.
known_false_positives: Administrator tooling or automated scripts may make these calls but it is highly unlikely to make several calls in a short period of time.
references:
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/
- https://stratus-red-team.cloud/attack-techniques/AWS/aws.credential-access.ec2-get-password-data/
drilldown_searches:
- name: View the detection results for - "$user$"
search: '%original_detection_search% | search user = "$user$"'
earliest_offset: $info_min_time$
latest_offset: $info_max_time$
- name: View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$user$"
search: '| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$user$") | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(search_name) as "Search Name" values(risk_message) as "Risk Message" values(analyticstories) as "Analytic Stories" values(annotations._all) as "Annotations" values(annotations.mitre_attack.mitre_tactic) as "ATT&CK Tactics" by normalized_risk_object | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`'
earliest_offset: 7d
latest_offset: "0"
intermediate_findings:
entities:
- field: user
type: user
score: 20
message: User $user$ is seen to make mulitple `GetPasswordData` API calls to multiple instances from IP $src$
threat_objects:
- field: src
type: ip_address
analytic_story:
- AWS Identity and Access Management Account Takeover
asset_type: AWS Account
mitre_attack_id:
- T1110.001
- T1586.003
product:
- Splunk Enterprise
- Splunk Enterprise Security
- Splunk Cloud
category: cloud
security_domain: threat
tests:
- name: True Positive Test
attack_data:
- data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1552/aws_getpassworddata/aws_cloudtrail_events.json
source: aws_cloudtrail
sourcetype: aws:cloudtrail
test_type: unit
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
`cloudtrail` eventName=GetPasswordData eventSource = ec2.amazonaws.com
Stage 2: bucket
| bin _time span=5m
Stage 3: rename
| rename user_name as user
Stage 4: stats
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime dc(requestParameters.instanceId) as distinct_instance_ids
BY signature dest user
user_agent src vendor_account
vendor_region vendor_product
Stage 5: where
| where distinct_instance_ids > 10
Stage 6: search
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
Stage 7: search
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
Stage 8: search
| `aws_credential_access_getpassworddata_filter`
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 |
|---|---|---|
distinct_instance_ids | gt |
|
eventName | eq |
|
eventSource | eq |
|
sourcetype | eq |
|