↳ GitHub sourceAnalytics ruleMedium
AWSCloudTrail - Creation of CRUD DynamoDB policy and then privilege escalation
Description
Identifies creation of IAM policies that provide broad CRUD permissions for DynamoDB, followed by policy attachment activity. This sequence can indicate an attempt to grant capabilities that support
privilege escalation and should be validated against approved administrative changes.
- Rule type
- Scheduled
- Version
- 1.0.3
- Declared status
- Available
- Query frequency
- 1d
- Query period
- 1d
- Trigger
- gt 0
Declared MITRE coverage
Declared sources
Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.
Connectors
Data types
KQL query
Original query, unchanged.
let EventNameList = dynamic(["AttachUserPolicy","AttachRolePolicy","AttachGroupPolicy"]);
let createPolicy = dynamic(["CreatePolicy", "CreatePolicyVersion"]);
let timeframe = 1d;
let lookback = 14d;
// Creating Master table with all the events to use with materialize for better performance
let EventInfo = AWSCloudTrail
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(lookback)
| where EventName in (EventNameList) or EventName in (createPolicy)
| extend UserIdentityArn = iif(isempty(UserIdentityArn), tostring(parse_json(Resources)[0].ARN), UserIdentityArn)
| extend UserName = tostring(split(UserIdentityArn, '/')[-1])
| extend AccountName = case( UserIdentityPrincipalid == "Anonymous", "Anonymous", isempty(UserIdentityUserName), UserName, UserIdentityUserName)
| extend AccountName = iif(AccountName contains "@", tostring(split(AccountName, '@', 0)[0]), AccountName),
AccountUPNSuffix = iif(AccountName contains "@", tostring(split(AccountName, '@', 1)[0]), "");
//Checking for Policy creation event with Full Admin Privileges since lookback period.
let FullAdminPolicyEvents = materialize( EventInfo
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(lookback)
| where EventName in (createPolicy)
| extend PolicyName = tostring(parse_json(RequestParameters).policyName)
| extend Statement = parse_json(tostring((parse_json(RequestParameters).policyDocument))).Statement
| mvexpand Statement
| extend Action = parse_json(Statement).Action , Effect = tostring(parse_json(Statement).Effect), Resource = tostring(parse_json(Statement).Resource), Condition = tostring(parse_json(Statement).Condition)
| extend Action = tostring(Action)
| where Effect =~ "Allow" and ((Action contains "dynamodb:Create" or Action contains "dynamodb:Put") and (Action contains "dynamodb:Describe" or Action contains "dynamodb:Get" or Action contains "dynamodb:Scan") and Action contains "dynamodb:Update" and Action contains "dynamodb:Delete") and Resource == "*" and Condition == ""
| distinct TimeGenerated, EventName, PolicyName, SourceIpAddress, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, UserIdentityArn
| project-rename StartTime = TimeGenerated );
let PolicyAttach = materialize( EventInfo
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(timeframe)
| where EventName in (EventNameList) and isempty(ErrorCode) and isempty(ErrorMessage)
| extend PolicyName = tostring(split(tostring(parse_json(RequestParameters).policyArn),"/")[1])
| summarize AttachEventCount=count(), StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated) by EventSource, EventName, UserIdentityType , RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix, UserIdentityArn, SourceIpAddress, PolicyName
| extend AttachEvent = pack("StartTime", StartTime, "EndTime", EndTime, "EventName", EventName, "UserIdentityType", UserIdentityType, "SourceIpAddress", SourceIpAddress, "AccountName", AccountName, "AccountUPNSuffix", AccountUPNSuffix, "RecipientAccountId", RecipientAccountId, "UserIdentityArn", UserIdentityArn)
| project EventSource, PolicyName, AttachEvent, AttachEventCount, RecipientAccountId, AccountName, AccountUPNSuffix
);
// Joining the list of PolicyNames and checking if it has been attached to any Roles/Users/Groups.
// These Roles/Users/Groups will be Privileged and can be used by adversaries as pivot point for privilege escalation via multiple ways.
FullAdminPolicyEvents
| join kind=leftouter
(
PolicyAttach
)
on PolicyName
| project-away PolicyName1
Declared entities
Related content
Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.
Source provenance
GitHubDisplayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.
- Commit
9800e51↗- Source identifier
6f675c17-7a61-440c-abd1-c73ef4d748ec
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING
Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC