AWS EC2 EBS Snapshot Shared or Made Public

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-10-24
Created 2 years ago on 2024-04-16

About

Detects when an Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) snapshot is shared with another AWS account or made public. EBS snapshots contain copies of data volumes that may include sensitive or regulated information. Adversaries may exploit ModifySnapshotAttribute to share snapshots with external accounts or the public, allowing them to copy and access data in an environment they control. This activity often precedes data exfiltration or persistence operations, where the attacker transfers stolen data out of the victim account or prepares a staging area for further exploitation.
Tags
Domain: CloudData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWS EC2Use Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExfiltrationLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Exfiltration (TA0010)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
AMI sharing is a common practice in AWS environments. Ensure that the sharing is authorized before taking action.
License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
filebeat-*logs-aws.cloudtrail-*
Related Integrations

aws(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
info where event.dataset == "aws.cloudtrail"  
  and event.action == "ModifySnapshotAttribute"
  and event.outcome == "success"
  and stringContains (aws.cloudtrail.request_parameters, "attributeType=CREATE_VOLUME_PERMISSION")
  and stringContains (aws.cloudtrail.request_parameters, "add=")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS EC2 EBS Snapshot Shared or Made Public 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(opens in a new tab or window).