Detection: Abnormally High AWS Instances Terminated by User

DEPRECATED DETECTION

This detection has been marked as deprecated by the Splunk Threat Research team. This means that it will no longer be maintained or supported. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us at research@splunk.com.

Description

This search looks for AWS CloudTrail events where an abnormally high number of instances were successfully terminated by a user in a 10-minute window. This search is deprecated and have been translated to use the latest Change Datamodel.

 1`cloudtrail` eventName=TerminateInstances errorCode=success 
 2| bucket span=10m _time 
 3| stats count AS instances_terminated by _time userName 
 4| eventstats avg(instances_terminated) as total_terminations_avg, stdev(instances_terminated) as total_terminations_stdev 
 5| eval threshold_value = 4 
 6| eval isOutlier=if(instances_terminated > total_terminations_avg+(total_terminations_stdev * threshold_value), 1, 0) 
 7| search isOutlier=1 AND _time >= relative_time(now(), "-10m@m")
 8| eval num_standard_deviations_away = round(abs(instances_terminated - total_terminations_avg) / total_terminations_stdev, 2) 
 9|table _time, userName, instances_terminated, num_standard_deviations_away, total_terminations_avg, total_terminations_stdev 
10| `abnormally_high_aws_instances_terminated_by_user_filter`

Data Source

Name Platform Sourcetype Source Supported App
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Macros Used

Name Value
cloudtrail sourcetype=aws:cloudtrail
abnormally_high_aws_instances_terminated_by_user_filter search *
abnormally_high_aws_instances_terminated_by_user_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK
+ Kill Chain Phases
+ NIST
+ CIS
- Threat Actors
ID Technique Tactic
T1078.004 Cloud Accounts Defense Evasion
KillChainPhase.DELIVERY
KillChainPhase.EXPLOITAITON
KillChainPhase.INSTALLATION
NistCategory.DE_AE
Cis18Value.CIS_13
APT28
APT29
APT33
APT5
Ke3chang
LAPSUS$

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting Value
Disabled true
Cron Schedule 0 * * * *
Earliest Time -70m@m
Latest Time -10m@m
Schedule Window auto
Creates Risk Event True
This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

You must install the AWS App for Splunk (version 5.1.0 or later) and Splunk Add-on for AWS (version 4.4.0 or later), then configure your AWS CloudTrail inputs.

Known False Positives

Many service accounts configured with your AWS infrastructure are known to exhibit this behavior. Please adjust the threshold values and filter out service accounts from the output. Always verify whether this search alerted on a human user.

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message Risk Score Impact Confidence
tbd 25 50 50
The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

Detection Testing

Test Type Status Dataset Source Sourcetype
Validation Not Applicable N/A N/A N/A
Unit ❌ Failing N/A N/A N/A
Integration ❌ Failing N/A N/A N/A

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: GitHub | Version: 3