name: AWS Cross Account Activity
id: 2f2f610a-d64d-48c2-b57c-967a2b49ab5a
version: 1
date: '2018-06-04'
author: David Dorsey, Splunk
type: batch
description: Track when a user assumes an IAM role in another AWS account to obtain
  cross-account access to services and resources in that account. Accessing new roles
  could be an indication of malicious activity.
narrative: 'Amazon Web Services (AWS) admins manage access to AWS resources and services
  across the enterprise using AWS''s Identity and Access Management (IAM) functionality.
  IAM provides the ability to create and manage AWS users, groups, and roles-each
  with their own unique set of privileges and defined access to specific resources
  (such as EC2 instances, the AWS Management Console, API, or the command-line interface).
  Unlike conventional (human) users, IAM roles are assumable by anyone in the organization.
  They provide users with dynamically created temporary security credentials that
  expire within a set time period.\

  Herein lies the rub. In between the time between when the temporary credentials
  are issued and when they expire is a period of opportunity, where a user could leverage
  the temporary credentials to wreak havoc-spin up or remove instances, create new
  users, elevate privileges, and other malicious activities-throughout the environment.\

  This Analytic Story includes searches that will help you monitor your AWS CloudTrail
  logs for evidence of suspicious cross-account activity.  For example, while accessing
  multiple AWS accounts and roles may be perfectly valid behavior, it may be suspicious
  when an account requests privileges of an account it has not accessed in the past.
  After identifying suspicious activities, you can use the provided investigative
  searches to help you probe more deeply.'
references:
- https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-cloudtrail-now-tracks-cross-account-activity-to-its-origin/
tags:
  analytic_story: AWS Cross Account Activity
  category:
  - Cloud Security
  product:
  - Splunk Enterprise
  - Splunk Enterprise Security
  - Splunk Cloud
  usecase: Security Monitoring
