AWS GuardDuty Member Account Manipulation

Last updated 20 days ago on 2026-02-05

Created 20 days ago on 2026-02-05

About

Detects attempts to disassociate or manipulate Amazon GuardDuty member accounts within an AWS organization. In multi-account GuardDuty deployments, a delegated administrator account aggregates findings from member accounts. Adversaries may attempt to disassociate member accounts, delete member relationships, stop monitoring members, or delete pending invitations to break this centralized visibility. These actions can be precursors to or alternatives for deleting GuardDuty detectors entirely, allowing attackers to operate undetected in member accounts while the administrator account loses visibility. This rule identifies successful API calls that manipulate GuardDuty member relationships, which are rare in normal operations and warrant immediate investigation.

Tags

Domain: CloudData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWS GuardDutyTactic: Defense EvasionLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Defense Evasion (TA0005)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Impair Defenses (T1562)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

GuardDuty member relationships may be modified during legitimate organizational changes such as account migrations, security architecture restructuring, or delegated administrator transitions. Verify whether the user identity and timing align with approved change management processes. If this is expected administrative activity, it can be exempted from the rule.

License

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

Definition

Rule Type: Query (Kibana Query Language)
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: "guardduty.amazonaws.com"
    and event.action: (
        "DisassociateFromAdministratorAccount" or
        "DeleteMembers" or
        "StopMonitoringMembers" or
        "DeleteInvitations" or
        "DisassociateMembers"
    )
    and event.outcome: "success"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS GuardDuty Member Account Manipulation 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).