sigmahighHunting

AWS EC2 Startup Shell Script Change

Detects changes to the EC2 instance startup script. The shell script will be executed as root/SYSTEM every time the specific instances are booted up.

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.001 T1059.003 T1059.004

execution

Detection Query

selection_source:
  eventSource: ec2.amazonaws.com
  requestParameters.attribute: userData
  eventName: ModifyInstanceAttribute
condition: selection_source

Author

faloker

Created

2020-02-12

Data Sources

awscloudtrail

Platforms

aws

References

https://github.com/RhinoSecurityLabs/pacu/blob/866376cd711666c775bbfcde0524c817f2c5b181/pacu/modules/ec2__startup_shell_script/main.py#L9

Tags

attack.executionattack.t1059.001attack.t1059.003attack.t1059.004

Raw Content

title: AWS EC2 Startup Shell Script Change
id: 1ab3c5ed-5baf-417b-bb6b-78ca33f6c3df
status: test
description: Detects changes to the EC2 instance startup script. The shell script will be executed as root/SYSTEM every time the specific instances are booted up.
references:
    - https://github.com/RhinoSecurityLabs/pacu/blob/866376cd711666c775bbfcde0524c817f2c5b181/pacu/modules/ec2__startup_shell_script/main.py#L9
author: faloker
date: 2020-02-12
modified: 2022-06-07
tags:
    - attack.execution
    - attack.t1059.001
    - attack.t1059.003
    - attack.t1059.004
logsource:
    product: aws
    service: cloudtrail
detection:
    selection_source:
        eventSource: ec2.amazonaws.com
        requestParameters.attribute: 'userData'
        eventName: ModifyInstanceAttribute
    condition: selection_source
falsepositives:
    - Valid changes to the startup script
level: high