ASL AWS Defense Evasion Update Cloudtrail

name: ASL AWS Defense Evasion Update Cloudtrail
id: f3eb471c-16d0-404d-897c-7653f0a78cba
version: 9
date: '2026-03-10'
author: Patrick Bareiss, Splunk
status: production
type: TTP
description: The following analytic detects `UpdateTrail` events within AWS CloudTrail logs, aiming to identify attempts by attackers to evade detection by altering logging configurations. By updating CloudTrail settings with incorrect parameters, such as changing multi-regional logging to a single region, attackers can impair the logging of their activities across other regions. This behavior is crucial for Security Operations Centers (SOCs) to identify, as it indicates an adversary's intent to operate undetected within a compromised AWS environment. The impact of such evasion tactics is significant, potentially allowing malicious activities to proceed without being logged, thereby hindering incident response and forensic investigations.
data_source:
    - ASL AWS CloudTrail
search: |-
    `amazon_security_lake` api.operation=UpdateTrail
      | fillnull
      | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
        BY actor.user.uid api.operation api.service.name
           http_request.user_agent src_endpoint.ip actor.user.account.uid
           cloud.provider cloud.region
      | rename actor.user.uid as user api.operation as action api.service.name as dest http_request.user_agent as user_agent src_endpoint.ip as src actor.user.account.uid as vendor_account cloud.provider as vendor_product cloud.region as vendor_region
      | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
      | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
      | `asl_aws_defense_evasion_update_cloudtrail_filter`
how_to_implement: The detection is based on Amazon Security Lake events from Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is a centralized data lake that provides security-related data from AWS services. To use this detection, you must ingest CloudTrail logs from Amazon Security Lake into Splunk. To run this search, ensure that you ingest events using the latest version of Splunk Add-on for Amazon Web Services (https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/1876) or the Federated Analytics App.
known_false_positives: While this search has no known false positives, it is possible that an AWS admin has updated cloudtrail logging. Please investigate this activity.
references:
    - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/008/
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 ("$user$") starthoursago=168  | 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: $info_min_time$
      latest_offset: $info_max_time$
rba:
    message: User $user$ has updated a cloudtrail logging for account id $vendor_account$ from IP $src$
    risk_objects:
        - field: user
          type: user
          score: 50
    threat_objects:
        - field: src
          type: ip_address
tags:
    analytic_story:
        - AWS Defense Evasion
    asset_type: AWS Account
    mitre_attack_id:
        - T1562.008
    product:
        - Splunk Enterprise
        - Splunk Enterprise Security
        - Splunk Cloud
    security_domain: threat
tests:
    - name: True Positive Test
      attack_data:
        - data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1562.008/update_cloudtrail/asl_ocsf_cloudtrail.json
          sourcetype: aws:asl
          source: aws_asl