Detects when a package service such as npm, gems, or a script interpreter makes an outbound network connection to an OAST (Out-of-band Application Security Testing) domain. Threat actors have been using OAST domains to exfiltrate sensitive data from compromised systems via malicious packages.

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This rule detects the use of ADExplorer utility. Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. Adversaries may abuse this utility to perform domain reconnaissance.

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Identifies a potential forced authentication using related SMB named pipes. Attackers may attempt to force targets to authenticate to a host controlled by them to capture hashes or enable relay attacks.

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Detects when an administrator role is assigned to an Okta group. An adversary may attempt to assign administrator privileges to an Okta group in order to assign additional permissions to compromised user accounts and maintain access to their target organization.

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Detects modifications in the AdminSDHolder object. Attackers can abuse the SDProp process to implement a persistent backdoor in Active Directory. SDProp compares the permissions on protected objects with those defined on the AdminSDHolder object. If the permissions on any of the protected accounts and groups do not match, the permissions on the protected accounts and groups are reset to match those of the domain's AdminSDHolder object, regaining their Administrative Privileges.

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Identifies a modification on the dsHeuristics attribute on the bit that holds the configuration of groups excluded from the SDProp process. The SDProp compares the permissions on protected objects with those defined on the AdminSDHolder object. If the permissions on any of the protected accounts and groups do not match, the permissions on the protected accounts and groups are reset to match those of the domain's AdminSDHolder object, meaning that groups excluded will remain unchanged. Attackers can abuse this misconfiguration to maintain long-term access to privileged accounts in these groups.

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This rule uses alert data to determine when multiple alerts from different integrations with unique event categories and involving the same destination.ip are triggered. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as these IP address is more likely to be related to a compromise.

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This rule uses alert data to determine when multiple alerts from different integrations with unique event categories and involving the same user.name are triggered. Analysts can use this to prioritize triage and response, as these users are more likely to be compromised.

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Identifies the creation of an Alternate Data Stream (ADS) at a volume root directory, which can indicate the attempt to hide tools and malware, as ADSs created in this directory are not displayed by system utilities.

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Identifies access to AppArmor kernel policy control interfaces through the .load, .replace, or .remove files under /sys/kernel/security/apparmor/. These special files are used to load, modify, or remove AppArmor profiles and are rarely accessed during normal system activity outside of policy administration. Reads or writes to these interfaces may indicate legitimate security configuration changes, but can also reflect defense evasion, unauthorized policy tampering, or the installation of attacker-controlled profiles. This detection is especially valuable on systems where AppArmor policy changes are uncommon or tightly controlled.

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Detects the execution of "apparmor_parser" using the "-o" option to write a compiled AppArmor profile to an output file. This functionality is normally used by system administration tools or package installation scripts when building or loading AppArmor policies. In adversarial scenarios, attackers may use "apparmor_parser" to compile custom AppArmor profiles that can later be loaded into the kernel through AppArmor policy management interfaces. Malicious profiles may weaken security controls, alter the behavior of privileged programs, or assist in exploitation chains involving AppArmor policy manipulation.

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Detects execution via the Apple script interpreter (osascript) followed by a network connection from the same process within a short time period. Adversaries may use malicious scripts for execution and command and control.

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Identifies execution of the Apple script interpreter (osascript) without a password prompt and with administrator privileges.

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Detects when an administrator adds a Google Workspace Marketplace application to the domain. Adversaries with administrative access may register a malicious OAuth application to establish long-lived API access to mail, drive, and other Workspace data, maintaining persistence and enabling collection without relying on a single user password alone.

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Google Workspace administrators may be aware of malicious applications within the Google marketplace and block these applications for user security purposes. An adversary, with administrative privileges, may remove this application from the explicit block list to allow distribution of the application amongst users. This may also indicate the unauthorized use of an application that had been previously blocked before by a user with admin privileges.

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Monitors for the deletion of the kernel ring buffer events through dmesg. Attackers may clear kernel ring buffer events to evade detection after installing a Linux kernel module (LKM). This activity is commonly observed by intrusions that leverage kernel-level rootkits to maintain persistence on a compromised host.

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Detects attempts to create an Okta API token. An adversary may create an Okta API token to maintain access to an organization's network while they work to achieve their objectives. An attacker may abuse an API token to execute techniques such as creating user accounts or disabling security rules or policies.

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Detects attempts to deactivate an Okta policy. An adversary may attempt to deactivate an Okta policy in order to weaken an organization's security controls. For example, an adversary may attempt to deactivate an Okta multi-factor authentication (MFA) policy in order to weaken the authentication requirements for user accounts.

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Detects attempts to delete an Okta network zone. Okta network zones can be configured to limit or restrict access to a network based on IP addresses or geolocations. An adversary may attempt to modify, delete, or deactivate an Okta network zone in order to remove or weaken an organization's security controls.

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Detects attempts to delete an Okta policy. An adversary may attempt to delete an Okta policy in order to weaken an organization's security controls. For example, an adversary may attempt to delete an Okta multi-factor authentication (MFA) policy in order to weaken the authentication requirements for user accounts.

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Detects attempts to disable Gatekeeper on macOS. Gatekeeper is a security feature that's designed to ensure that only trusted software is run. Adversaries may attempt to disable Gatekeeper before executing malicious code.

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Identifies attempts to enable the root account using the dsenableroot command. This command may be abused by adversaries for persistence, as the root account is disabled by default.

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Adversaries may install a root certificate on a compromised system to avoid warnings when connecting to their command and control servers. Root certificates are used in public key cryptography to identify a root certificate authority (CA). When a root certificate is installed, the system or application will trust certificates in the root's chain of trust that have been signed by the root certificate.

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Detects attempts to modify an Okta network zone. Okta network zones can be configured to limit or restrict access to a network based on IP addresses or geolocations. An adversary may attempt to modify, delete, or deactivate an Okta network zone in order to remove or weaken an organization's security controls.

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Identifies attempts to revoke an Okta API token. An adversary may attempt to revoke or delete an Okta API token to disrupt an organization's business operations.

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Identifies attempts to unload the Elastic Endpoint Security kernel extension via the kextunload command.

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Detects attempts to bypass Okta multi-factor authentication (MFA). An adversary may attempt to bypass the Okta MFA policies configured for an organization in order to obtain unauthorized access to an application.

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Identifies AWS API activity originating from uncommon desktop client applications based on the user agent string. This rule detects S3 Browser and Cyberduck, which are graphical S3 management tools that provide bulk upload/download capabilities. While legitimate, these tools are rarely used in enterprise environments and have been observed in use by threat actors for data exfiltration. Any activity from these clients should be validated against authorized data transfer workflows.

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Identifies deletion of an AWS Backup recovery point via DeleteRecoveryPoint. A recovery point is a stored backup of a protected resource (EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, S3, and others). Deleting recovery points removes the ability to restore the associated data and is a core anti-recovery technique used in ransomware and data-destruction attacks to ensure victims cannot recover without paying or rebuilding. Routine lifecycle expirations are performed by the AWS Backup service itself; deletion by a non-service principal is rare and should be reviewed.

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Identifies an Amazon Bedrock AgentCore execution role (an AssumedRole identity whose role name begins with "AgentCore-" or contains "BedrockAgentCore") making an AWS API call to a service it has not previously called. AgentCore runtimes normally interact only with Bedrock inference, AgentCore data-plane, and observability services (CloudWatch Logs, X-Ray, CloudWatch metrics), so an execution role suddenly calling STS, EC2, IAM, Secrets Manager, or other services is a strong indicator that the role's temporary credentials were exfiltrated from the agent's microVM (for example, via the Code Interpreter instance-metadata-service credential theft) and are being used outside the runtime for reconnaissance, privilege escalation, or lateral movement. Because the stolen credentials are recorded in CloudTrail under the execution role's own identity, the anomalous service usage, not the identity, is the detectable signal.

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Identifies prompts sent to an Amazon Bedrock AgentCore runtime that contain AWS access key identifiers (AKIA long-term or ASIA temporary/STS), Amazon Bedrock API keys (ABSK bearer tokens), or PEM-encoded private keys. The runtime application logs record the caller-supplied prompt; credentials embedded in a prompt are exposed to the model provider, persisted in observability logs, and may be returned in completions or used by downstream tools. This commonly indicates accidental secret leakage by a user or application, or an attempt to stage credentials for misuse through the agent. Secrets should never be passed to an agent in clear text.

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Identifies prompts sent to an Amazon Bedrock AgentCore runtime that attempt to harvest credentials or coerce the agent into exfiltrating data. The runtime application logs capture the caller-supplied prompt; this rule flags prompts that reference the cloud instance metadata service (169.254.169.254, the ECS task metadata address, or the "latest/meta-data" / "security-credentials" paths), prompts that name AWS access or secret keys directly, and prompt-injection or jailbreak language ("ignore previous instructions", "developer mode", "do anything now") combined with intent to reveal secrets, system prompts, or send data to an external endpoint. Asking an agent to read instance metadata credentials or to exfiltrate secrets is rarely legitimate and indicates an attempt to weaponize the agent for credential theft, even when the model refuses the request.

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Identifies multiple successive failed attempts to use denied model resources within AWS Bedrock. This could indicated attempts to bypass limitations of other approved models, or to force an impact on the environment by incurring exhorbitant costs.

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Identifies multiple validation exeception errors within AWS Bedrock. Validation errors occur when you run the InvokeModel or InvokeModelWithResponseStream APIs on a foundation model that uses an incorrect inference parameter or corresponding value. These errors also occur when you use an inference parameter for one model with a model that doesn't have the same API parameter. This could indicate attempts to bypass limitations of other approved models, or to force an impact on the environment by incurring exhorbitant costs.

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Identifies when access to an Amazon Bedrock foundation model is enabled at the account level, either by granting a foundation-model entitlement, submitting a use case for model access, or creating a foundation-model agreement (accepting the EULA). These account-level "model access" actions unlock a foundation model so that it can subsequently be invoked. Adversaries or a compromised principal may enable model access to abuse expensive models (LLMjacking), to establish a durable ability to invoke models within the account, or to bypass organizational controls. This activity is distinct from changes to a resource-based model invocation policy and is identified by the Bedrock control-plane API calls that grant model entitlements and agreements.

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Detects when an AWS principal using long-term IAM user credentials (AKIA* access key) enumerates available Bedrock foundation models and then invokes a model within the same 15-minute window. Most legitimate Bedrock workloads run under IAM roles with short-lived credentials; the combination of model enumeration followed by direct model invocation from a long-term IAM user key is unusual in production environments and consistent with an adversary using stolen credentials to discover and exploit available AI model capabilities. This pattern is associated with LLMjacking attacks where threat actors abuse compromised cloud credentials to run high-volume or high-cost model inference at the account owner's expense.

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Identifies multiple violations of AWS Bedrock guardrails within a single request, resulting in a block action, increasing the likelihood of malicious intent. Multiple violations implies that a user may be intentionally attempting to cirvumvent security controls, access sensitive information, or possibly exploit a vulnerability in the system.

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Identifies multiple violations of AWS Bedrock guardrails by the same user in the same account over a session. Multiple violations implies that a user may be intentionally attempting to cirvumvent security controls, access sensitive information, or possibly exploit a vulnerability in the system.

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Identifies multiple AWS Bedrock executions in a one minute time window without guardrails by the same user in the same account over a session. Multiple consecutive executions implies that a user may be intentionally attempting to bypass security controls, by not routing the requests with the desired guardrail configuration in order to access sensitive information, or possibly exploit a vulnerability in the system.

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Detects control-plane mutations to AWS Bedrock knowledge bases and their backing RAG data sources via CloudTrail. An adversary with access to Bedrock Agent APIs can poison the corpus that RAG-enabled models treat as authoritative by ingesting attacker-controlled documents (IngestKnowledgeBaseDocuments, StartIngestionJob), deleting legitimate documents (DeleteKnowledgeBaseDocuments), or repointing/altering the data source itself (CreateDataSource, UpdateDataSource, DeleteDataSource, UpdateKnowledgeBase). Because downstream applications and users trust model answers grounded in this stored data, tampering with the corpus is a stored data manipulation that can drive misinformation, fraud, or manipulated decisions at inference time. This is a New Terms rule that looks for the first time a given identity ARN performs one of these knowledge base or data source mutations within the history window.

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Detects when an AWS Bedrock model invocation logging configuration is deleted or overwritten via the DeleteModelInvocationLoggingConfiguration or PutModelInvocationLoggingConfiguration API calls. Model invocation logging is the source that feeds the logs-aws_bedrock.invocation-* dataset relied upon by all data-plane Bedrock detections. An adversary who has gained access to a Bedrock environment can blind defenders by deleting this configuration, or by using the Put API to redirect logs to an attacker-controlled or non-monitored S3 bucket or CloudWatch log group. Because this single control-plane action can neutralize the entire data-plane detection stack, it is a high-value evasion technique that should be validated against expected administrative change activity.

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Identifies an Amazon Bedrock model invocation whose prompt or completion contains an AWS access key identifier (AKIA long-term or ASIA temporary/STS, followed by 16 characters), an Amazon Bedrock API key (ABSK bearer token), or a PEM private-key block. Credentials in the model input mean an application or user is sending secrets to the model, exposing them to invocation logging, the model provider, and prompt history; credentials in the model output mean the model is emitting secrets, which can result from training-data leakage, poisoned context, or a prompt-injection-driven exfiltration attempt. Either case is a credential-exposure event that warrants immediate rotation of the affected secret.

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Detects the use of the AWS CLI with the "--endpoint-url" argument, which allows users to specify a custom endpoint URL for AWS services. This can be leveraged by adversaries to redirect API requests to non-standard or malicious endpoints, potentially bypassing typical security controls and logging mechanisms. This behavior may indicate an attempt to interact with unauthorized or compromised infrastructure, exfiltrate data, or perform other malicious activities under the guise of legitimate AWS operations.

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Detects creation of a new AWS CloudTrail trail via CreateTrail API. While legitimate during onboarding or auditing improvements, adversaries can create trails that write to attacker-controlled destinations, limit regions, or otherwise subvert monitoring objectives. New trails should be validated for destination ownership, encryption, multi-region coverage, and organizational scope.

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Detects deletion of an AWS CloudTrail trail via DeleteTrail API. Removing trails is a high-risk action that destroys an audit control plane and is frequently paired with other destructive or stealthy operations. Validate immediately and restore compliant logging.

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Identifies the evasion of cloudtrail logging for IAM actions involving policy creation, modification or attachment. When making certain policy-related API calls, an adversary may pad the associated policy document with whitespaces to trigger CloudTrail’s logging size constraints, resulting in incomplete logging where critical details about the policy are omitted. By exploiting this gap, threat actors can bypass monitoring performed through CloudTrail and can effectively obscure unauthorized changes. This rule looks for IAM API calls with the requestParameters property containing reason:”requestParameters too large” and omitted:true.

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Detects Cloudtrail logging suspension via StopLogging API. Stopping CloudTrail eliminates forward audit visibility and is a classic defense evasion step before sensitive changes or data theft. Investigate immediately and determine what occurred during the logging gap.

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Identifies when an AWS Config configuration recorder is stopped. AWS Config recorders continuously track and record configuration changes across supported AWS resources. Stopping the recorder immediately reduces visibility into infrastructure changes and can be abused by adversaries to evade detection, obscure follow-on activity, or weaken compliance and security monitoring controls.

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This rule detects the use of system search utilities like grep and find to search for AWS credentials inside a container. Unauthorized access to these sensitive files could lead to further compromise of the container environment or facilitate a container breakout to the underlying cloud environment.

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Flags the first time a given IAM principal invokes a narrow set of high-signal discovery APIs (credential check, account and IAM enumeration, bucket and compute inventory, logging introspection) from a source IP whose autonomous system number (ASN) matches a curated set commonly associated with consumer VPN brands, VPN-heavy hosting, and provider networks referenced in public reporting on TeamPCP activity (for example 31173 Services AB AS39351 and Oy Crea Nova Hosting Solution Ltd). Broad List*/Describe* patterns are intentionally omitted to reduce noise. Hosting ASNs are heavily dual-use; validate source.as.number in your data and extend event.action only when your baseline allows it.

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Identifies when an AWS DynamoDB table is scanned by a user who does not typically perform this action. Adversaries may use the Scan operation to collect sensitive information or exfiltrate data from DynamoDB tables. This rule detects unusual user activity by monitoring for the Scan action in CloudTrail logs. This is a New Terms rule that only flags when this behavior is observed by a user or role for the first time.

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Identifies when an AWS DynamoDB table is exported to S3. Adversaries may use the ExportTableToPointInTime operation to collect sensitive information or exfiltrate data from DynamoDB tables. This rule detects unusual user activity by monitoring for the ExportTableToPointInTime action in CloudTrail logs. This is a New Terms rule that only flags when this behavior is observed by a user or role for the first time.

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Identifies the first time a given IAM principal successfully creates an EC2 key pair when the request is sourced from a network whose autonomous system organization is not attributed to common cloud or hyperscaler providers in your GeoIP data. Adversaries may call CreateKeyPair to stage SSH access material before launching or accessing instances. A new terms baseline on user_identity.arn suppresses repeated noise from the same principal while still surfacing the initial suspicious creation from an unusual egress label.

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Detects when Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) encryption by default is disabled in an AWS region. EBS encryption ensures that newly created volumes and snapshots are automatically protected with AWS Key Management Service (KMS) keys. Disabling this setting introduces significant risk as all future volumes created in that region will be unencrypted by default, potentially exposing sensitive data at rest. Adversaries may disable encryption to weaken data protection before exfiltrating or tampering with EBS volumes or snapshots. This may be a step in preparation for data theft or ransomware-style attacks that depend on unencrypted volumes.

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Identifies successful export tasks of EC2 instances via the APIs CreateInstanceExportTask, ExportImage, or CreateStoreImageTask. These exports can be used by administrators for legitimate VM migration or backup workflows however, an attacker with access to an EC2 instance or AWS credentials can export a VM or its image and then transfer it off-account for exfiltration of data.

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Detects successful creation of an Amazon EC2 Traffic Mirroring session. A session copies full packets from a source Elastic Network Interface (ENI) to a mirror target (e.g., an ENI or NLB) using a mirror filter (ingress/egress rules). While used for diagnostics and NDR/IDS tooling, adversaries can abuse sessions to covertly capture and exfiltrate sensitive, potentially unencrypted, traffic from instances or subnets.

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Identifies when a new SSH public key is uploaded to an AWS EC2 instance using the EC2 Instance Connect service. This action could indicate an adversary attempting to maintain access to the instance. The rule detects the SendSerialConsoleSSHPublicKey or SendSSHPublicKey API actions, which are logged when manually uploading an SSH key to an EC2 instance or serial connection. It is important to know that this API call happens automatically by the EC2 Instance Connect service when a user connects to an EC2 instance using the EC2 Instance Connect service via the CLI or AWS Management Console.

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Detects successful AWS Management Console or federation login activity performed using an EC2 instance’s assumed role credentials. EC2 instances typically use temporary credentials to make API calls, not to authenticate interactively via the console. A successful "ConsoleLogin" or "GetSigninToken" event using a session pattern that includes "i-" (the EC2 instance ID) is highly anomalous and may indicate that an adversary obtained the instance’s temporary credentials from the instance metadata service (IMDS) and used them to access the console. Such activity can enable lateral movement, privilege escalation, or persistence within the AWS account.

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Identifies when an IAM instance profile is associated with a running EC2 instance or replaces the existing association. These APIs change which role credentials the instance obtains via the instance metadata service without terminating the instance. Attackers who can call AssociateIamInstanceProfile or ReplaceIamInstanceProfile may attach a more privileged role to a workload they control, enabling privilege escalation or lateral movement from the instance.

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Identifies the execution of Living Off the Land Binaries (LOLBins) or GTFOBins on EC2 instances via AWS Systems Manager (SSM) SendCommand API. This detection correlates AWS CloudTrail SendCommand events with endpoint process execution by matching SSM command IDs. While AWS redacts command parameters in CloudTrail logs, this correlation technique reveals the actual commands executed on EC2 instances. Adversaries may abuse SSM to execute malicious commands remotely without requiring SSH or RDP access, using legitimate system utilities for data exfiltration, establishing reverse shells, or lateral movement.

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Identifies AWS CloudTrail events where an EC2 route table or association has been modified or deleted. Route table or association modifications can be used by attackers to disrupt network traffic, reroute communications, or maintain persistence in a compromised environment. This is a New Terms rule that detects the first instance of this behavior by a user or role.

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Detects when EC2 Serial Console Access is enabled for an AWS account. The EC2 Serial Console provides direct, text-based access to an instance's serial port, bypassing the network layer entirely. While useful for troubleshooting boot issues or network misconfigurations, enabling serial console access in production environments is rare and potentially dangerous. Adversaries may enable this feature to establish an out-of-band communication channel that evades network-based security monitoring, firewalls, and VPC controls. This access method can be used for persistent backdoor access or to interact with compromised instances without triggering network-based detection mechanisms.

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Identifies the first occurrence of an unauthorized attempt by an AWS role to use GetPassword to access the administrator password of an EC2 instance. Adversaries may use this API call to escalate privileges or move laterally within EC2 instances.

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Detects when the AmazonEKSClusterAdminPolicy or AmazonEKSAdminPolicy is associated with a principal via the EKS Access Entries API. This grants full cluster-admin equivalent access to the specified IAM user or role. Unlike the legacy aws-auth ConfigMap which is only visible in Kubernetes audit logs, Access Entries modifications appear in CloudTrail, providing an additional detection surface. Attackers who have obtained IAM permissions to manage EKS access entries can use this API to backdoor cluster access for persistence, mapping attacker-controlled IAM identities to cluster-admin privileges without modifying any Kubernetes resources.

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Detects successful Amazon EKS Access Entries API operations that create, update, attach, detach, or delete authentication mappings between IAM principals and the cluster. Changes to access entries alter who can authenticate to Kubernetes and what Kubernetes-level permissions they receive, without requiring edits to in-cluster RBAC objects. Unexpected callers or timing may indicate persistence or privilege abuse. Common automation identities (service-linked roles, eksctl, Terraform, CloudFormation role patterns) are excluded to reduce noise; tune further for your deployment pipelines.

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Detects successful Amazon EKS UpdateClusterConfig requests that disable control plane logging. Disabling EKS API server and control plane logs can reduce visibility into cluster activity and may indicate defense evasion following compromised AWS credentials or unauthorized administrative access. EKS control plane logging changes are typically rare and should align with approved maintenance or cost optimization workflows.

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Identifies the first occurrence of an AWS Security Token Service (STS) GetFederationToken request made by a user. The GetFederationToken API call allows users to request temporary security credentials to access AWS resources. The maximum expiration period for these tokens is 36 hours and they can be used to create a console signin token even for identities that don't already have one. Adversaries may use this API to obtain temporary credentials for persistence and to bypass IAM API call limitations by gaining console access.

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Detects attempts to disassociate or manipulate Amazon GuardDuty member accounts within an AWS organization. In multi-account GuardDuty deployments, a delegated administrator account aggregates findings from member accounts. Adversaries may attempt to disassociate member accounts, delete member relationships, stop monitoring members, or delete pending invitations to break this centralized visibility. These actions can be precursors to or alternatives for deleting GuardDuty detectors entirely, allowing attackers to operate undetected in member accounts while the administrator account loses visibility. This rule identifies successful API calls that manipulate GuardDuty member relationships, which are rare in normal operations and warrant immediate investigation.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by attaching additional permissions to user groups the compromised user account belongs to. This rule looks for use of the IAM AttachGroupPolicy API operation to attach the highly permissive AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy to an existing IAM user group.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by attaching additional permissions to compromised user accounts. This rule looks for use of the IAM AttachUserPolicy API operation to attach the highly permissive AdministratorAccess AWS managed policy to an existing IAM user.

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This rule looks for use of the IAM AttachUserPolicy API operation to attach the CompromisedKeyQuarantine or CompromisedKeyQuarantineV2 AWS managed policies to an existing IAM user. This policy denies access to certain actions and is applied by the AWS team in the event that an IAM user's credentials have been compromised or exposed publicly.

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Detects the creation of an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user initiated by an assumed role on an EC2 instance. Assumed roles allow users or services to temporarily adopt different AWS permissions, but the creation of IAM users through these roles, particularly from within EC2 instances, may indicate a compromised instance. Adversaries might exploit such permissions to establish persistence by creating new IAM users under unauthorized conditions.

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Identifies the creation of a group in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). Groups specify permissions for multiple users. Any user in a group automatically has the permissions that are assigned to the group. Adversaries who obtain credentials with IAM write privileges may create a new group as a foothold for persistence: they can later attach admin-level policies to the group and quietly add users or roles to inherit those privileges.

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Detects when an IAM group is deleted using the DeleteGroup API call. Deletion of an IAM group may represent a malicious attempt to remove audit trails, disrupt operations, or hide adversary activity (for example after using the group briefly for privileged access). This can be an indicator of impact or cleanup in an attack lifecycle.

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Identifies creation of a console login profile for the AWS account root user. While CreateLoginProfile normally applies to IAM users, when performed from a temporary root session (e.g., via AssumeRoot) and the userName parameter is omitted, the profile is created for the root principal (self-assigned). Adversaries with temporary root access may add or reset the root login profile to establish persistent console access even if original access keys are rotated or disabled. Correlate with recent AssumeRoot/STS activity and validate intent with the account owner.

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Identifies creation or modification of a console login profile for an AWS IAM user via CreateLoginProfile or UpdateLoginProfile. A login profile enables password-based console sign-in for an IAM user. Adversaries who obtain programmatic credentials may create a login profile to add persistent interactive console access, or update an existing profile to reset another user's password and take over the account, even after the original access keys are rotated. Because console access for IAM users is increasingly provisioned through federation or IAM Identity Center, direct use of these APIs by an unexpected principal warrants review. This rule targets IAM users (the userName parameter is present); creation of a login profile for the account root user is covered by a separate rule.

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Correlates open detection alerts that share the same long-term IAM access key ID ( prefix AKIA). It fires when the rule AWS Long-Term Access Key First Seen from Source IP (rule_id: 9f8e3c5e-f72e-4e91-93f6-e98a4fae3e4f) has triggered for that key and at least one other open alert for the same key is medium, high, or critical severity. This higher-order rule helps prioritize long-term key novelty when it co-occurs with elevated detections that may indicate post-compromise activity.

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Detects when an uncommon user or role creates an OpenID Connect (OIDC) Identity Provider in AWS IAM. OIDC providers enable web identity federation, allowing users authenticated by external identity providers (such as Google, GitHub, or custom OIDC-compliant providers) to assume IAM roles and access AWS resources. Adversaries who have gained administrative access may create rogue OIDC providers to establish persistent, federated access that survives credential rotation. This technique allows attackers to assume roles using tokens from an IdP they control. While OIDC provider creation is benign in some environments, it should still be validated against authorized infrastructure changes.

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Detects the creation of a new AWS IAM Roles Anywhere profile. Roles Anywhere allows workloads or external systems to assume IAM roles from outside AWS by authenticating via trusted certificate authorities (trust anchors). Adversaries who have established persistence through a rogue trust anchor may create or modify profiles to link them with highly privileged roles, enabling long-term external access to the AWS environment. This rule identifies successful "CreateProfile" API calls and helps detect potentially unauthorized or risky external access configurations.

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Detects the creation of an AWS IAM Roles Anywhere Trust Anchor that uses an external certificate authority (CA) rather than an AWS-managed Certificate Manager Private CA (ACM PCA). While Roles Anywhere enables secure, short-term credential issuance for workloads outside AWS, adversaries can exploit this feature by registering their own external CA as a trusted root. This allows them to generate valid client certificates that persistently authenticate to AWS roles from any location, even after key rotation or credential revocation events. This rule helps detect persistence or unauthorized federation attempts by flagging trust anchors configured with non-AWS CAs.

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Detects the creation of a new SAML Identity Provider (IdP) in AWS IAM. SAML providers enable federated authentication between AWS and external identity providers, allowing users to access AWS resources using credentials from the external IdP. Adversaries who have gained administrative access may create rogue SAML providers to establish persistent, federated access to AWS accounts that survives credential rotation. This technique allows attackers to assume roles and access resources by forging SAML assertions from an IdP they control. Creating a SAML provider is a rare administrative action that should be closely monitored and validated against authorized infrastructure changes.

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Detects when an AWS IAM SAML provider is updated, which manages federated authentication between AWS and external identity providers (IdPs). Adversaries with administrative access may modify a SAML provider’s metadata or certificate to redirect authentication flows, enable unauthorized federation, or escalate privileges through identity trust manipulation. Because SAML providers underpin single sign-on (SSO) access for users and applications, unauthorized modifications may allow persistent or covert access even after credentials are revoked. Monitoring "UpdateSAMLProvider" API activity is critical to detect potential compromise of federated trust relationships.

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Detects successful IAM API calls that create or empower IAM users and roles, attach or embed policies, or wire roles to instance profiles when the caller is an assumed role session associated with AWS Lambda. Serverless execution roles are often over-permissioned; an adversary who can run or compromise function code can abuse these APIs for privilege escalation and persistence—for example creating users or roles, issuing keys, attaching managed or inline policies, or preparing EC2 instance profiles for lateral movement.

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Identifies the first observed occurrence, within the configured New Terms history window, of a regular IAM user successfully signing in to the AWS Management Console without multi-factor authentication. A password alone is a weaker control than password-plus-MFA, and an adversary who has phished, guessed, or otherwise obtained a user's password can sign in directly if MFA is not enforced for that user. This rule is scoped to standard IAM users only; it excludes the AWS root user (covered by a dedicated rule) and federated/SSO sign-ins (covered by a dedicated rule that also accounts for IdP-side MFA), since MFAUsed: No is expected in both of those cases for reasons unrelated to this gap.

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An adversary with access to a set of compromised credentials may attempt to persist or escalate privileges by creating a new set of credentials for an existing user. This rule looks for use of the IAM CreateAccessKey API operation to create new programmatic access keys for another IAM user.

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Detects an AWS IAM user using an existing credential to create a new access key for itself and subsequently using the new key within one hour. This behavior can indicate an adversary converting compromised credentials into an additional long-term credential for persistence. Unlike a standalone self-service key creation alert, requiring subsequent use of the new key reduces noise from unused or abandoned credential-rotation operations.

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Detects attempts to create or enable a Virtual MFA device (CreateVirtualMFADevice, EnableMFADevice) using temporary AWS credentials (access keys beginning with ASIA). Session credentials are short-lived and tied to existing authenticated sessions, so using them to register or enable MFA devices is unusual. Adversaries who compromise temporary credentials may abuse this behavior to establish persistence by attaching new MFA devices to maintain access to high-privilege accounts despite key rotation or password resets.

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Identifies successful PutKeyPolicy calls on AWS KMS keys. The key policy is a resource-based policy that controls which principals can use the key for cryptographic operations and administration. Adversaries with "kms:PutKeyPolicy" may add or broaden principals (including external accounts) to decrypt or exfiltrate data protected by the key, or to preserve access after other credentials are rotated. This is distinct from disabling or scheduling deletion of the key.

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Identifies an AWS Lambda function invoked directly by a principal from a source network (ASN) not seen for that principal in the prior 10 days, excluding common cloud provider networks. Direct invocation from an unfamiliar external network can indicate use of stolen execution-role or user credentials from attacker-controlled infrastructure to execute functions or retrieve the data they return. This rule relies on AWS Lambda data event logging, which is not enabled by default.

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Identifies when an AWS Lambda function policy is updated to allow public invocation. This rule detects use of the AddPermission API where the Principal is set to "*", enabling any AWS account to invoke the function. Adversaries may abuse this configuration to establish persistence, create a covert execution path, or operate a function as an unauthenticated backdoor. Public invocation is rarely required outside very specific workloads and should be considered high-risk when performed unexpectedly.

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Identifies the creation or update of an AWS Lambda function URL configured with an authentication type of NONE, which exposes the function to unauthenticated invocation directly from the public internet. Adversaries can use a public function URL to establish a durable, internet-reachable entry point for command and control, data egress, or on-demand execution of attacker-controlled code, bypassing the need for valid AWS credentials to invoke the function. Function URLs with public access should be rare and deliberate, so this configuration warrants review.

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Identifies a high number of failed authentication attempts to the AWS management console for the Root user identity. An adversary may attempt to brute force the password for the Root user identity, as it has complete access to all services and resources for the AWS account.

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Identifies a successful login to the AWS Management Console by the Root user.

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Surfaces an AWS identity whose successful API traffic is dominated by a small set of large cloud-provider source AS organization labels, yet also shows a very small share of traffic from other AS organization names—including at least one sensitive control-plane, credential, storage, or model-invocation action on that uncommon network path with recent activity from the uncommon path. The intent is to highlight disproportionate “baseline” cloud egress versus sparse use from rarer networks on the same principal, a shape that can appear when automation or CI credentials are reused or pivoted outside their usual hosted-cloud footprint.

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Identifies the creation or modification of an Amazon RDS DB instance or cluster where the "publiclyAccessible" attribute is set to "true". Publicly accessible RDS instances expose a network endpoint on the public internet, which may allow unauthorized access if combined with overly permissive security groups, weak authentication, or misconfigured IAM policies. Adversaries may enable public access on an existing instance, or create a new publicly accessible instance, to establish persistence, move data outside of controlled network boundaries, or bypass internal access controls.

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Identifies the modification of an AWS RDS DB instance or cluster to disable the deletionProtection feature. Deletion protection prevents accidental or unauthorized deletion of RDS resources. Adversaries with sufficient permissions may disable this protection as a precursor to destructive actions, including the deletion of databases containing sensitive or business-critical data. This rule alerts when deletionProtection is explicitly set to false on an RDS DB instance or cluster.

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Identifies the modification of the master password for an AWS RDS DB instance or cluster. Changing the master password is a legitimate recovery action when access is lost, but adversaries with sufficient permissions may modify it to regain access, establish persistence, bypass existing controls, or escalate privileges within a compromised environment. Because RDS does not expose the password in API responses, this operation can meaningfully alter access pathways to sensitive data stores.

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Identifies the restoration of an AWS RDS database instance from a snapshot or S3 backup. Adversaries with access to valid credentials may restore copies of existing databases to bypass logging and monitoring controls or to exfiltrate sensitive data from a duplicated environment. This rule detects successful restoration operations using "RestoreDBInstanceFromDBSnapshot" or "RestoreDBInstanceFromS3", which may indicate unauthorized data access or post-compromise defense evasion.

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Identifies the export of a DB snapshot or DB cluster data to Amazon S3. Snapshot exports can be used for analytics or migration workflows, but adversaries may abuse them to exfiltrate sensitive data outside of RDS-managed storage. Exporting a snapshot creates a portable copy of the database contents, which, if performed without authorization, can indicate data theft, staging for exfiltration, or operator misconfiguration that exposes regulated information.

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Identifies when the transfer lock on an AWS Route 53 domain is disabled. The transfer lock protects domains from being moved to another registrar or AWS account without authorization. Disabling this lock removes an important safeguard against domain hijacking. Adversaries who gain access to domain-management permissions may disable the lock as a precursor to unauthorized domain transfer, takeover, or service disruption.

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Identifies when an AWS Route 53 domain is transferred to another AWS account. Transferring a domain changes administrative control of the DNS namespace, enabling the receiving account to modify DNS records, route traffic, request certificates, and potentially hijack operational workloads. Adversaries who gain access to privileged IAM users or long-lived credentials may leverage domain transfers to establish persistence, redirect traffic, conduct phishing, or stage infrastructure for broader attacks. This rule detects successful domain transfer requests.

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Identifies the deletion of an Amazon Route 53 Resolver Query Log Configuration. Resolver query logs provide critical visibility into DNS activity across VPCs, including lookups made by EC2 instances, containers, Lambda functions, and other AWS resources. Deleting a query log configuration immediately stops DNS query and response logging for the associated VPC. Adversaries may delete these configurations to evade detection, suppress forensic evidence, or degrade security monitoring capabilities.

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Detects when an Amazon S3 bucket policy is modified to grant public access using a wildcard (Principal:"") statement. This rule analyzes PutBucketPolicy events that include both Effect=Allow and Principal:"" in the request parameters, indicating that permissions were extended to all identities, potentially making the bucket or its contents publicly accessible. Publicly exposing an S3 bucket is one of the most common causes of sensitive data leaks in AWS environments. Adversaries or misconfigurations can leverage this exposure to exfiltrate data, host malicious content, or collect credentials and logs left in open storage.

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Detects when an Amazon S3 bucket policy is modified to share access with an external AWS account. This rule analyzes PutBucketPolicy events and compares the S3 bucket’s account ID to any account IDs referenced in the policy’s Effect=Allow statements. If the policy includes principals from accounts other than the bucket owner’s, the rule triggers an alert. This behavior may indicate an adversary backdooring a bucket for data exfiltration or cross-account persistence. For example, an attacker who compromises credentials could attach a policy allowing access from an external AWS account they control, enabling continued access even after credentials are rotated. Note: This rule will not alert if the account ID is part of the bucket’s name or appears in the resource ARN. Such cases are common in standardized naming conventions (e.g., “mybucket-123456789012”). To ensure full coverage, use complementary rules to monitor for suspicious PutBucketPolicy API requests targeting buckets with account IDs embedded in their names or resources.

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Identifies the creation or modification of an S3 bucket replication configuration that sends data to a bucket in a different AWS account. Cross-account replication can be used legitimately for backup, disaster recovery, and multi-account architectures, but adversaries with write access to an S3 bucket may abuse replication rules to silently exfiltrate large volumes of data to attacker-controlled accounts. This rule detects "PutBucketReplication" events where the configured destination account differs from the source bucket's account, indicating potential unauthorized cross-account data movement.

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Identifies use of the S3 CopyObject API where the destination object is encrypted using an AWS KMS key from an external AWS account. This behavior may indicate ransomware-style impact activity where an adversary with access to a misconfigured S3 bucket encrypts objects using a KMS key they control, preventing the bucket owner from decrypting their own data. This technique is a critical early signal of destructive intent or cross-account misuse.

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This rule detects when a JavaScript file is uploaded in an S3 static site directory (static/js/) by an IAM user or assumed role. This can indicate suspicious modification of web content hosted on S3, such as injecting malicious scripts into a static website frontend.

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Identifies when a federated user logs into the AWS Management Console. Federated users are typically given temporary credentials to access AWS services. If a federated user logs into the AWS Management Console without using MFA, it may indicate a security risk, as MFA adds an additional layer of security to the authentication process. However, CloudTrail does not record whether a Federated User utilized MFA as part of authentication — that MFA decision often occurs at a third-party IdP (e.g., Okta, Azure AD, Google). As a result, CloudTrail fields such as MFAUsed / mfaAuthenticated appear as “No/false” for federated console logins even if IdP MFA was required. This alert should be correlated with IdP authentication logs to verify whether MFA was enforced for the session. Increase priority if you find a related "GetSigninToken" event whose source IP / ASN / geo or user-agent differs from the subsequent "ConsoleLogin" (possible token relay/abuse). Same-IP/UA pairs within a short window are more consistent with expected operator behavior and can be triaged with lower severity.

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Identifies a password recovery request for the AWS account root user. In AWS, the PasswordRecoveryRequested event from signin.amazonaws.com applies to the root user’s “Forgot your password?” flow. Other identity types, like IAM and federated users, do not generate this event. This alert indicates that someone initiated the root password reset workflow for this account. Verify whether this was an expected action and review identity provider notifications/email to confirm legitimacy.

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Identifies when a user subscribes to an SNS topic using a new protocol type (ie. email, http, lambda, etc.). SNS allows users to subscribe to recieve topic messages across a broad range of protocols like email, sms, lambda functions, http endpoints, and applications. Adversaries may subscribe to an SNS topic to collect sensitive information or exfiltrate data via an external email address, cross-account AWS service or other means. This rule identifies a new protocol subscription method for a particular user.

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Identifies when an SNS topic is created by a user who does not typically perform this action. Adversaries may create SNS topics to stage capabilities for data exfiltration or other malicious activities. This is a New Terms rule that only flags when this behavior is observed for the first time by a user or role.

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Identifies when an SNS topic message is published by a rare user in AWS. Adversaries may publish messages to SNS topics for phishing campaigns, data exfiltration, or lateral movement within the AWS environment. SNS topics are used to send notifications and messages to subscribed endpoints such as applications, mobile devices or email addresses, making them a valuable target for adversaries to distribute malicious content or exfiltrate sensitive data. This is a New Terms rule that only flags when this behavior is observed for the first time by a user or role.

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Identifies when an AWS Simple Queue Service (SQS) queue is purged. Purging an SQS queue permanently deletes all messages currently in the queue. Adversaries may use this action to disrupt application workflows, destroy operational data, or impair monitoring and alerting by removing messages that contain evidence of malicious activity.

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Identifies the use of the AWS Systems Manager (SSM) SendCommand API with the either AWS-RunShellScript or AWS-RunPowerShellScript parameters. The SendCommand API call allows users to execute commands on EC2 instances using the SSM service. Adversaries may use this technique to execute commands on EC2 instances without the need for SSH or RDP access. This behavior may indicate an adversary attempting to execute commands on an EC2 instance for malicious purposes. This is a New Terms rule that only flags when this behavior is observed for the first time on a host in the last 7 days.

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Identifies when an AWS Systems Manager (SSM) command document is created by a user or role who does not typically perform this action. Adversaries may create SSM command documents to execute commands on managed instances, potentially leading to unauthorized access, command and control, data exfiltration and more.

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Detects the rare occurrence of a user or role accessing AWS Systems Manager (SSM) inventory APIs or running the AWS-GatherSoftwareInventory job. These APIs reveal detailed information about managed EC2 instances including installed software, patch compliance status, and command execution history. Adversaries may use these calls to collect software inventory while blending in with legitimate AWS operations. This is a New Terms rule that detects when a user accesses these reconnaissance APIs for the first time.

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Identifies the first occurrence of an AWS user or role establishing a session via SSM to an EC2 instance. Adversaries may use AWS Session Manager to establish a session to an EC2 instance to execute commands on the instance. This can be used to gain access to the instance and perform actions such as privilege escalation.

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Identifies when a user has assumed a role using a new MFA device. Users can assume a role to obtain temporary credentials and access AWS resources using the AssumeRole API of AWS Security Token Service (STS). While a new MFA device is not always indicative of malicious behavior it should be verified as adversaries can use this technique for persistence and privilege escalation.

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Identifies when the STS AssumeRoot action is performed by a rare user in AWS. The AssumeRoot action allows users to assume the root member account role, granting elevated but specific permissions based on the task policy specified. Adversaries who have compromised user credentials can use this technique to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized access to AWS resources. This is a New Terms rule that identifies when the STS AssumeRoot action is performed by a user that rarely assumes this role against a specific member account.

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Identifies the deletion of one or more flow logs in AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). An adversary may delete flow logs in an attempt to evade defenses.

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Identifies the deletion of an AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) Web ACL. Web ACLs are the core enforcement objects in AWS WAF, defining which traffic is inspected, allowed, or blocked for protected applications. Deleting a Web ACL removes all associated rules, protections, and logging configurations. Adversaries who obtain sufficient privileges may delete a Web ACL to disable critical security controls, evade detection, or prepare for downstream attacks such as web-application compromise, data theft, or resource abuse. Because Web ACLs are rarely deleted outside of controlled maintenance or infrastructure updates, unexpected deletions may indicate potential defense evasion.

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Identifies the deletion of an AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule or rule group. WAF rules and rule groups enforce critical protections for web applications by filtering malicious HTTP requests, blocking known attack patterns, and enforcing access controls. Deleting these rules—even briefly—can expose applications to SQL injection, cross-site scripting, credential-stuffing bots, or targeted exploitation. Adversaries who have gained sufficient permissions may remove WAF protections as part of a broader defense evasion or impact strategy, often preceding data theft or direct application compromise.

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Detects when a service principal or user performs an Azure Arc cluster credential listing operation from a source IP not previously associated with that identity. The listClusterUserCredential action retrieves credentials for the Arc Cluster Connect proxy, enabling kubectl access through the Azure ARM API. An adversary using stolen service principal credentials will typically call this operation from infrastructure not previously seen for that SP. By tracking the combination of caller identity and source IP, this rule avoids false positives from backend services and CI/CD pipelines that rotate IPs but maintain consistent identity-to-IP patterns over time.

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Identifies when an Azure Automation account is created. Azure Automation accounts can be used to automate management tasks and orchestrate actions across systems. An adversary may create an Automation account in order to maintain persistence in their target's environment.

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Identifies when an Azure Automation runbook is deleted. An adversary may delete an Azure Automation runbook in order to disrupt their target's automated business operations or to remove a malicious runbook for defense evasion.

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Identifies when an Azure Automation webhook is created. Azure Automation runbooks can be configured to execute via a webhook. A webhook uses a custom URL passed to Azure Automation along with a data payload specific to the runbook. An adversary may create a webhook in order to trigger a runbook that contains malicious code.

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Identifies when the Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) permissions are modified for an Azure Blob. An adversary may modify the permissions on a blob to weaken their target's security controls or an administrator may inadvertently modify the permissions, which could lead to data exposure or loss.

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Identifies the deletion of Azure Restore Point Collections by a user who has not previously performed this activity. Restore Point Collections contain recovery points for virtual machines, enabling point-in-time recovery capabilities. Adversaries may delete these collections to prevent recovery during ransomware attacks or to cover their tracks during malicious operations.

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Identifies multiple Azure Restore Point Collections being deleted by a single user within a short time period. Restore Point Collections contain recovery points for virtual machines, enabling point-in-time recovery capabilities. Mass deletion of these collections is a common tactic used by adversaries during ransomware attacks to prevent victim recovery or to maximize impact during destructive operations. Multiple deletions in rapid succession may indicate malicious intent.

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Identifies when an Azure disk snapshot is deleted by an unusual user in a specific resource group. Snapshots are critical for backup, disaster recovery, and forensic analysis. Adversaries may delete snapshots to prevent data recovery, eliminate forensic evidence, or disrupt backup strategies before executing ransomware or other destructive attacks. Monitoring snapshot deletions is essential for detecting potential attacks targeting backup and recovery capabilities.

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Identifies when a single user or service principal deletes multiple Azure disk snapshots within a short time period. This behavior may indicate an adversary attempting to inhibit system recovery capabilities, destroy backup evidence, or prepare for a ransomware attack. Mass deletion of snapshots eliminates restore points and significantly impacts disaster recovery capabilities, making it a critical indicator of potentially malicious activity.

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Identifies the creation of suppression rules in Azure. Suppression rules are a mechanism used to suppress alerts previously identified as false positives or too noisy to be in production. This mechanism can be abused or mistakenly configured, resulting in defense evasions and loss of security visibility.

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Identifies when an Event Hub Authorization Rule is created or updated in Azure. An authorization rule is associated with specific rights, and carries a pair of cryptographic keys. When you create an Event Hubs namespace, a policy rule named RootManageSharedAccessKey is created for the namespace. This has manage permissions for the entire namespace and it's recommended that you treat this rule like an administrative root account and don't use it in your application.

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Identifies an Event Hub deletion in Azure. An Event Hub is an event processing service that ingests and processes large volumes of events and data. An adversary may delete an Event Hub in an attempt to evade detection.

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Identifies excessive secret or key retrieval operations from Azure Key Vault. This rule detects when a user principal retrieves secrets or keys from Azure Key Vault multiple times within a short time frame, which may indicate potential abuse or unauthorized access attempts. The rule focuses on high-frequency retrieval operations that deviate from normal user behavior, suggesting possible credential harvesting or misuse of sensitive information.

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Identifies when events are deleted in Azure Kubernetes. Kubernetes events are objects that log any state changes. Example events are a container creation, an image pull, or a pod scheduling on a node. An adversary may delete events in Azure Kubernetes in an attempt to evade detection.

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Identifies the deletion of Azure Kubernetes Pods. Adversaries may delete a Kubernetes pod to disrupt the normal behavior of the environment.

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Identifies the creation of role binding or cluster role bindings. You can assign these roles to Kubernetes subjects (users, groups, or service accounts) with role bindings and cluster role bindings. An adversary who has permissions to create bindings and cluster-bindings in the cluster can create a binding to the cluster-admin ClusterRole or to other high privileges roles.

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Detects when Azure OpenAI requests result in zero response length, potentially indicating issues in output handling that might lead to security exploits such as data leaks or code execution. This can occur in cases where the API fails to handle outputs correctly under certain input conditions.

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Detects when a service principal authenticates to Microsoft Entra ID and then lists credentials for an Azure Arc-connected Kubernetes cluster within a short time window. The listClusterUserCredential action retrieves tokens that enable kubectl access through the Arc Cluster Connect proxy. This sequence (service principal sign-in followed by Arc credential retrieval), represents the exact attack chain used by adversaries with stolen service principal secrets to establish a proxy tunnel into Kubernetes clusters. Service principals that authenticate externally (as opposed to managed identities) and immediately access Arc cluster credentials warrant investigation, particularly when the sign-in originates from an unexpected location or ASN.

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Identifies when Azure Storage Account Blob public access is enabled, allowing external access to blob containers. This technique was observed in cloud ransom-based campaigns where threat actors modified storage accounts to expose non-remotely accessible accounts to the internet for data exfiltration. Adversaries abuse the Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/write operation to modify public access settings.

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Identifies when an Azure Storage Account is deleted. Adversaries may delete storage accounts to disrupt operations, destroy evidence, or cause denial of service. This activity could indicate an attacker attempting to cover their tracks after data exfiltration or as part of a destructive attack. Monitoring storage account deletions is critical for detecting potential impact on business operations and data availability.

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Identifies when a single user or service principal deletes multiple Azure Storage Accounts within a short time period. This behavior may indicate an adversary attempting to cause widespread service disruption, destroy evidence, or execute a destructive attack such as ransomware. Mass deletion of storage accounts can have severe business impact and is rarely performed by legitimate administrators except during controlled decommissioning activities.

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Identifies a rotation to storage account access keys in Azure. Regenerating access keys can affect any applications or Azure services that are dependent on the storage account key. Adversaries may regenerate a key as a means of acquiring credentials to access systems and resources.

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Identifies unusual high-privileged access to Azure Storage Account keys by users with Owner, Contributor, or Storage Account Contributor roles. This technique was observed in STORM-0501 ransomware campaigns where compromised identities with high-privilege Azure RBAC roles retrieved access keys to perform unauthorized operations on Storage Accounts. Microsoft recommends using Shared Access Signature (SAS) models instead of direct key access for improved security. This rule detects when a user principal with high-privilege roles accesses storage keys for the first time in 7 days.

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Identifies successful GetBlob operations on Azure Storage Accounts using AzCopy user agent with SAS token authentication. AzCopy is a command-line utility for copying data to and from Azure Storage. While legitimate for data migration, adversaries may abuse AzCopy with compromised SAS tokens to exfiltrate data from Azure Storage Accounts. This rule detects the first occurrence of GetBlob operations from a specific storage account using this pattern.

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Identifies retrieval of Azure VM boot diagnostics data ("MICROSOFT.COMPUTE/VIRTUALMACHINES/RETRIEVEBOOTDIAGNOSTICSDATA/ACTION") by an identity that has not performed this operation recently. Boot diagnostics expose the VM serial console log and a console screenshot, which frequently contain plaintext boot-time output such as credentials, tokens, cloud-init/agent secrets, and command history. An adversary with VM read/contributor rights can retrieve this data over the control plane, without logging into the guest or touching the network, to harvest credentials.

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Identifies create, read, update, or delete (CRUD) operations against Azure VM or VM scale set extensions ("MICROSOFT.COMPUTE/VIRTUALMACHINES/EXTENSIONS/*" or the scale set equivalent) where the combination of the targeted extension resource name and the source autonomous system (AS) number has not been observed recently. VM extensions such as CustomScript and DSC run with high privilege on the guest (SYSTEM on Windows, root on Linux), so writing, modifying, or removing them is a common code-execution and persistence primitive. By keying a new terms approach on the extension resource name and the source AS number, this rule surfaces extension operations originating from networks that have not historically managed that extension, while routine first-party Microsoft automation (which originates from well-known Microsoft AS numbers) is excluded.

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Identifies a connection to the Azure Serial Console of a virtual machine (VM) by an identity and source network combination that has not been observed recently. The Serial Console provides text-based console access to a VM through the boot diagnostics serial port, independent of the VM's network state. Because it does not traverse the VM's network interface, a Serial Console session bypasses Network Security Groups (NSGs), Just-in-Time (JIT) access policies, and other network controls. An adversary with a privileged Azure RBAC role (for example Virtual Machine Contributor) and boot diagnostics enabled on the target can use the Serial Console to obtain an interactive session as SYSTEM (Windows) or root (Linux).

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Identifies the deletion of a Frontdoor Web Application Firewall (WAF) Policy in Azure. An adversary may delete a Frontdoor Web Application Firewall (WAF) Policy in an attempt to evade defenses and/or to eliminate barriers to their objective.

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Identifies the deletion of a firewall policy in Azure. An adversary may delete a firewall policy in an attempt to evade defenses and/or to eliminate barriers to their objective.

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Identifies potential full network packet capture in Azure. Packet Capture is an Azure Network Watcher feature that can be used to inspect network traffic. This feature can potentially be abused to read sensitive data from unencrypted internal traffic.

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Identifies the deletion of a Network Watcher in Azure. Network Watchers are used to monitor, diagnose, view metrics, and enable or disable logs for resources in an Azure virtual network. An adversary may delete a Network Watcher in an attempt to evade defenses.

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Base16 and Base32 are encoding schemes that convert binary data into text, making it easier to transmit and store. This rule monitors for Base16 or Base32 encoding and decoding activity on Linux systems. Attackers may use these encoding schemes to obfuscate malicious payloads, evade detection, and facilitate data exfiltration.

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Detects when the tc (transmission control) binary is utilized to set a BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) on a network interface. Tc is used to configure Traffic Control in the Linux kernel. It can shape, schedule, police and drop traffic. A threat actor can utilize tc to set a bpf filter on an interface for the purpose of manipulating the incoming traffic. This technique is not at all common and should indicate abnormal, suspicious or malicious activity.

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Identifies the install of browser extensions. Malicious browser extensions can be installed via app store downloads masquerading as legitimate extensions, social engineering, or by an adversary that has already compromised a system.

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Detects the use of the chkconfig binary to manually add a service for management by chkconfig. Threat actors may utilize this technique to maintain persistence on a system. When a new service is added, chkconfig ensures that the service has either a start or a kill entry in every runlevel and when the system is rebooted the service file added will run providing long-term persistence.

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Cobalt Strike is a threat emulation platform commonly modified and used by adversaries to conduct network attack and exploitation campaigns. This rule detects a network activity algorithm leveraged by Cobalt Strike implant beacons for command and control.

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Identifies attempts to disable/modify the code signing policy through system native utilities. Code signing provides authenticity on a program, and grants the user with the ability to check whether the program has been tampered with. By allowing the execution of unsigned or self-signed code, threat actors can craft and execute malicious code.

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This rule detects when a container management binary is run from inside a container. These binaries are critical components of many containerized environments, and their presence and execution in unauthorized containers could indicate compromise or a misconfiguration.

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Detects execution of container runtime CLI tools (ctr, crictl, nerdctl) with arguments indicating container creation, command execution inside existing containers, image manipulation, or host filesystem mounting. These tools interact directly with the container runtime socket, bypassing the Kubernetes API server, RBAC authorization, admission webhooks, pod security standards, and Kubernetes audit logging entirely. Attackers with host-level access may use these tools to create privileged ghost containers, exec into other pods to steal service account tokens and secrets, pull attacker-controlled images, and destroy evidence, all while remaining invisible to Kubernetes-level monitoring.

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This rule correlates alerts from multiple integrations and event categories that involve different user.name values which may represent the same real-world identity. It uses an LLM-based similarity analysis to evaluate whether multiple user identifiers (e.g. naming variations, formats, aliases, or domain differences) likely belong to the same person.

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Identifies the creation of a hidden local user account by appending the dollar sign to the account name. This is sometimes done by attackers to increase access to a system and avoid appearing in the results of accounts listing using the net users command.

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Users can mark specific files as hidden simply by putting a "." as the first character in the file or folder name. Adversaries can use this to their advantage to hide files and folders on the system for persistence and defense evasion. This rule looks for hidden files or folders in common writable directories.

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Identifies the creation of a hidden launch agent or daemon. An adversary may establish persistence by installing a new launch agent or daemon which executes at login.

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Identifies the execution of osascript to create a hidden login item. This may indicate an attempt to persist a malicious program while concealing its presence.

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