AWS Account Discovery By Rare User

Last updated 3 days ago on 2026-04-01
Created 3 days ago on 2026-04-01

About

Identifies the first time, within a lookback window, an identity performs AWS Organizations or IAM account enumeration APIs. Attackers with compromised credentials often map the organization (accounts, OUs, roots, delegated admins) and account-level metadata (aliases, summary) using the AWS CLI or SDKs. This is a New Terms rule detecting a rare occurrence of the `cloud.account.id` and `user.name` pair for these actions.
Tags
Domain: CloudDomain: IdentityData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWS CloudTrailData Source: AWS OrganizationsData Source: AWS IAMUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryLanguage: kuery
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Discovery (TA0007)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
Organization and security administrators, billing tooling, landing-zone automation, and delegated administrator workflows may call these APIs legitimately. Interactive or one-off use from unusual principals warrants review.
License
Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
New Terms Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-aws.cloudtrail-*
Related Integrations

aws(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
event.dataset: "aws.cloudtrail" and event.outcome: "success" and source.ip:* and not aws.cloudtrail.session_credential_from_console: "true" and not aws.cloudtrail.user_identity.type: "AWSService" and ( ( event.provider: "organizations.amazonaws.com" and event.action: ( "DescribeOrganization" or "DescribeOrgnanizationalUnit" or "ListAccounts" or "ListRoots" or "ListOrganizationalUnitsForParent" or "ListAccountsForParent" or "ListPolicies" or "ListAWSServiceAccessForOrganization" or "ListDelegatedAdministrators" or "ListDelegatedServicesForAccount" or "DescribeResourcePolicy" ) ) or ( event.provider: "iam.amazonaws.com" and event.action: ("ListAccountAliases" or "GetAccountSummary") ) )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS Account Discovery By Rare User 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).