Elastic Security Detection Rules

AWS RDS DB Instance or Cluster Deleted

Last updated 11 days ago on 2025-11-24
Created 6 years ago on 2020-05-21

About

Identifies the deletion of an Amazon RDS DB instance, Aurora cluster, or global database cluster. Deleting these resources permanently destroys stored data and can cause major service disruption. Adversaries with sufficient permissions may delete RDS resources to impede recovery, destroy evidence, or inflict operational impact on the environment.
Tags
Domain: CloudData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWS RDSUse Case: Asset VisibilityTactic: ImpactLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Impact (TA0040)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Data Destruction (T1485)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
RDS instances or clusters may be intentionally deleted by database administrators or during planned decommissioning activities. Verify the user identity, source IP, and change context to ensure the deletion is expected. CloudFormation stack removals and automated cleanup workflows may also trigger these events and can be exempted if known and authorized.
License
Elastic License v2(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(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
event.dataset: aws.cloudtrail 
    and event.provider: rds.amazonaws.com 
    and event.action: (DeleteDBCluster or DeleteGlobalCluster or DeleteDBInstance)
    and event.outcome: success

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS RDS DB Instance or Cluster Deleted 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).