ID | Technique | Tactic |
---|---|---|
T1078.004 | Cloud Accounts | Defense Evasion |
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.
Search
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
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 |
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 |
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