Detection rules › Splunk
AWS Password Policy Changes
The following analytic detects successful API calls to view, update, or delete the password policy in an AWS organization. It leverages AWS CloudTrail logs to identify events such as "UpdateAccountPasswordPolicy," "GetAccountPasswordPolicy," and "DeleteAccountPasswordPolicy." This activity is significant because it is uncommon for regular users to perform these actions, and such changes can indicate an adversary attempting to understand or weaken password defenses. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to compromised accounts and increased attack surface, potentially allowing unauthorized access and control over AWS resources.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Discovery | T1201 Password Policy Discovery |
Rule body splunk
name: AWS Password Policy Changes
id: aee4a575-7064-4e60-b511-246f9baf9895
version: 8
creation_date: '2023-01-26'
modification_date: '2026-05-13'
author: Bhavin Patel, Splunk
status: production
type: Hunting
description: The following analytic detects successful API calls to view, update, or delete the password policy in an AWS organization. It leverages AWS CloudTrail logs to identify events such as "UpdateAccountPasswordPolicy," "GetAccountPasswordPolicy," and "DeleteAccountPasswordPolicy." This activity is significant because it is uncommon for regular users to perform these actions, and such changes can indicate an adversary attempting to understand or weaken password defenses. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to compromised accounts and increased attack surface, potentially allowing unauthorized access and control over AWS resources.
data_source:
- AWS CloudTrail UpdateAccountPasswordPolicy
- AWS CloudTrail GetAccountPasswordPolicy
- AWS CloudTrail DeleteAccountPasswordPolicy
search: |-
`cloudtrail` eventName IN ("UpdateAccountPasswordPolicy","GetAccountPasswordPolicy","DeleteAccountPasswordPolicy") errorCode=success
| rename user_name as user
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
BY signature dest user
user_agent src vendor_account
vendor_region vendor_product
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `aws_password_policy_changes_filter`
how_to_implement: You must install Splunk AWS Add on and Splunk App for AWS. This search works with AWS CloudTrail logs.
known_false_positives: While this search has no known false positives, it is possible that an AWS admin has legitimately triggered an AWS audit tool activity which may trigger this event.
references:
- https://www.trendmicro.com/cloudoneconformity/knowledge-base/aws/IAM/password-policy.html
analytic_story:
- AWS IAM Privilege Escalation
- Compromised User Account
asset_type: AWS Account
mitre_attack_id:
- T1201
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/T1201/aws_password_policy/cloudtrail.json
sourcetype: aws:cloudtrail
source: aws_cloudtrail
test_type: unit
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
`cloudtrail` eventName IN ("UpdateAccountPasswordPolicy","GetAccountPasswordPolicy","DeleteAccountPasswordPolicy") errorCode=success
Stage 2: rename
| rename user_name as user
Stage 3: stats
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
BY signature dest user
user_agent src vendor_account
vendor_region vendor_product
Stage 4: search
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
Stage 5: search
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
Stage 6: search
| `aws_password_policy_changes_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 |
|---|---|---|
errorCode | eq |
|
eventName | in |
|
sourcetype | eq |
|