AWS Secrets Manager Rapid Secrets Retrieval

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-11-07

Created 2 years ago on 2024-04-11

About

Identifies rapid secret retrieval activity from AWS Secrets Manager using the GetSecretValue or BatchGetSecretValue API actions. Adversaries who compromise an IAM user, instance role, or temporary credentials may attempt to enumerate or exfiltrate secrets in bulk to escalate privileges, move laterally, or gain persistence. This rule detects 20 or more unique secret retrievals by the same user identity within a short time window, which may indicate credential compromise or automated secret harvesting.

Tags

Domain: CloudData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWS Secrets ManagerTactic: Credential AccessLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Credential Access (TA0006)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Credentials from Password Stores (T1555)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Verify whether the user identity, user agent, and/or hostname should be using GetSecretValue or BatchGetSecretValue APIs for the specified SecretId. If known behavior is causing false positives, it can be exempted from the rule.

License

Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type: Threshold Rule
Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns: filebeat-*logs-aws.cloudtrail*
Related Integrations: aws(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗event.dataset: "aws.cloudtrail" 
    and event.provider: "secretsmanager.amazonaws.com" 
    and event.action: "GetSecretValue" 
    and event.outcome: "success" 
    and not (
        user_agent.name: ("Chrome" or "Firefox" or "Safari" or "Edge" or "Brave" or "Opera") 
        or source.address: ("kafka.amazonaws.com" or "apidestinations.events.amazonaws.com")
    )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS Secrets Manager Rapid Secrets Retrieval in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).