ATTACK-T1555.006Active

Cloud Secrets Management Stores

Statement

Adversaries may acquire credentials from cloud-native secret management solutions such as AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, Azure Key Vault, and Terraform Vault.

Secrets managers support the secure centralized management of passwords, API keys, and other credential material. Where secrets managers are in use, cloud services can dynamically acquire credentials via API requests rather than accessing secrets insecurely stored in plain text files or environment variables.

If an adversary is able to gain sufficient privileges in a cloud environment – for example, by obtaining the credentials of high-privileged Cloud Accounts or compromising a service that has permission to retrieve secrets – they may be able to request secrets from the secrets manager. This can be accomplished via commands such as get-secret-value in AWS, gcloud secrets describe in GCP, and az key vault secret show in Azure.(Citation: Permiso Scattered Spider 2023)(Citation: Sysdig ScarletEel 2.0 2023)(Citation: AWS Secrets Manager)(Citation: Google Cloud Secrets)(Citation: Microsoft Azure Key Vault)

Note: this technique is distinct from Cloud Instance Metadata API in that the credentials are being directly requested from the cloud secrets manager, rather than through the medium of the instance metadata API.

Location

Tactic: Credential Access

Technique Details

Identifier: ATTACK-T1555.006
Parent Technique: ATTACK-T1555
ATT&CK Page: View on MITRE

Tactics

Credential Access

Platforms

IaaS

Detection

Detect Unauthorized Access to Cloud Secrets Management Stores

Mitigations

Privileged Account Management: Privileged Account Management focuses on implementing policies, controls, and tools to securely manage privileged accounts (e.g., SYSTEM, root, or administrative accounts). This includes restricting access, limiting the scope of permissions, monitoring privileged account usage, and ensuring accountability through logging and auditing.This mitigation can be implemented through the following measures:

Account Permissions and Roles:

Implement RBAC and least privilege principles to allocate permissions securely.
Use tools like Active Directory Group Policies to enforce access restrictions.

Credential Security:

Deploy password vaulting tools like CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault, or KeePass for secure storage and rotation of credentials.
Enforce password policies for complexity, uniqueness, and expiration using tools like Microsoft Group Policy Objects (GPO).

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):

Enforce MFA for all privileged accounts using Duo Security, Okta, or Microsoft Azure AD MFA.

Privileged Access Management (PAM):

Use PAM solutions like CyberArk, BeyondTrust, or Thycotic to manage, monitor, and audit privileged access.

Auditing and Monitoring:

Integrate activity monitoring into your SIEM (e.g., Splunk or QRadar) to detect and alert on anomalous privileged account usage.

Just-In-Time Access:

Deploy JIT solutions like Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) or configure ephemeral roles in AWS and GCP to grant time-limited elevated permissions.

Tools for Implementation

Privileged Access Management (PAM):

CyberArk, BeyondTrust, Thycotic, HashiCorp Vault.

Credential Management:

Microsoft LAPS (Local Admin Password Solution), Password Safe, HashiCorp Vault, KeePass.

Multi-Factor Authentication:

Duo Security, Okta, Microsoft Azure MFA, Google Authenticator.

Linux Privilege Management:

sudo configuration, SELinux, AppArmor.

Just-In-Time Access:

Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM), AWS IAM Roles with session constraints, GCP Identity-Aware Proxy.

No cross-framework mappings available

← Back to Credential Access

Account Permissions and Roles:

Implement RBAC and least privilege principles to allocate permissions securely.
Use tools like Active Directory Group Policies to enforce access restrictions.

Credential Security:

Deploy password vaulting tools like CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault, or KeePass for secure storage and rotation of credentials.
Enforce password policies for complexity, uniqueness, and expiration using tools like Microsoft Group Policy Objects (GPO).

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):

Enforce MFA for all privileged accounts using Duo Security, Okta, or Microsoft Azure AD MFA.

Privileged Access Management (PAM):

Use PAM solutions like CyberArk, BeyondTrust, or Thycotic to manage, monitor, and audit privileged access.

Auditing and Monitoring:

Integrate activity monitoring into your SIEM (e.g., Splunk or QRadar) to detect and alert on anomalous privileged account usage.

Just-In-Time Access:

Deploy JIT solutions like Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) or configure ephemeral roles in AWS and GCP to grant time-limited elevated permissions.

Tools for Implementation

Privileged Access Management (PAM):

CyberArk, BeyondTrust, Thycotic, HashiCorp Vault.

Credential Management:

Microsoft LAPS (Local Admin Password Solution), Password Safe, HashiCorp Vault, KeePass.

Multi-Factor Authentication:

Duo Security, Okta, Microsoft Azure MFA, Google Authenticator.

Linux Privilege Management:

sudo configuration, SELinux, AppArmor.

Just-In-Time Access:

Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM), AWS IAM Roles with session constraints, GCP Identity-Aware Proxy.

Cloud Secrets Management Stores

Statement

Location

Technique Details

Tactics

Platforms

Detection

Mitigations

Cross-Framework Mappings0

Cloud Secrets Management Stores

Statement

Location

Technique Details

Tactics

Platforms

Detection

Mitigations

Cross-Framework Mappings0