Try in Splunk Security Cloud

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.

  • Type: Hunting

  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud

  • Last Updated: 2024-05-10
  • Author: Bhavin Patel, Splunk
  • ID: aee4a575-7064-4e60-b511-246f9baf9895

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1201 Password Policy Discovery Discovery
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.AE
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


1
2
3
4
5



`cloudtrail` eventName IN ("UpdateAccountPasswordPolicy","GetAccountPasswordPolicy","DeleteAccountPasswordPolicy") errorCode=success 
| stats count values(eventName) as eventName values(userAgent) min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by eventSource aws_account_id errorCode  awsRegion userIdentity.principalId user_arn src_ip 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`  
| `aws_password_policy_changes_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: aws_password_policy_changes_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • eventName
  • userAgent
  • errorCode
  • requestParameters.userName
  • eventSource
  • user_arn
  • aws_account_id
  • src_ip

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.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
72.0 90 80 User $user_arn$ is attempting to $eventName$ the password policy for account id $aws_account_id$

:information_source: The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

Reference

Test Dataset

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

source | version: 2