name: GCP Cross Account Activity
id: 0432039c-ef41-4b03-b157-450c25dad1e6
version: 1
date: '2020-09-01'
author: Rod Soto, Splunk
type: batch
description: Track when a user assumes an IAM role in another GCP account to obtain
  cross-account access to services and resources in that account. Accessing new roles
  could be an indication of malicious activity.
narrative: 'Google Cloud Platform (GCP) admins manage access to GCP resources and
  services across the enterprise using GCP Identity and Access Management (IAM) functionality.
  IAM provides the ability to create and manage GCP users, groups, and roles-each
  with their own unique set of privileges and defined access to specific resources
  (such as Compute instances, the GCP Management Console, API, or the command-line
  interface). Unlike conventional (human) users, IAM roles are potentially assumable
  by anyone in the organization. They provide users with dynamically created temporary
  security credentials that expire within a set time period.\

  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 GCP Audit
  logs logs for evidence of suspicious cross-account activity.  For example, while
  accessing multiple GCP 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://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/understanding-service-accounts
tags:
  analytic_story: GCP Cross Account Activity
  category:
  - Cloud Security
  product:
  - Splunk Enterprise
  - Splunk Enterprise Security
  - Splunk Cloud
  usecase: Security Monitoring
