AWS SES Full Access Policy Attached to IAM Entity by Unusual User

Last updated a day ago on 2026-08-31

Created a day ago on 2026-08-31

About

Detects the first occurrence in 7 days of an AWS identity attaching the managed policy AmazonSESFullAccess to an IAM user, role, or group. AmazonSESFullAccess grants unrestricted permission to send email, manage identities and templates, manage suppression lists, and access SES account-level settings. Granting this policy to an unexpected IAM entity, particularly a newly created user or a role not previously associated with email operations, is a documented technique used by threat actors to establish phishing infrastructure on compromised AWS accounts, enabling them to send email on behalf of the victim organization's trusted sending domain. Using new terms on the calling identity suppresses recurring attachments by known email automation while surfacing identities performing this action for the first time.

Tags

Domain: CloudPlatform: AWSData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesService: AWS IAMService: AWS SESRule Type: New TermsTactic: PersistenceTactic: Resource DevelopmentLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Account Manipulation (T1098)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Resource Development (TA0042)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Stage Capabilities (T1608)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Legitimate email service automation may attach AmazonSESFullAccess to a service account. Validate the target IAM entity against known email automation roles and CI/CD pipeline identities. Because this is a new terms rule keyed on the calling identity, recurring attachments by the same automation will not re-alert within the 7-day history window; first-time attachments by administrators performing legitimate setup may still trigger and should be validated against change management records.

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

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗data_stream.dataset: "aws.cloudtrail"
    and event.provider: "iam.amazonaws.com"
    and event.action: ("AttachUserPolicy" or "AttachRolePolicy" or "AttachGroupPolicy")
    and event.outcome: "success"
    and aws.cloudtrail.flattened.request_parameters.policyArn: "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSESFullAccess"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS SES Full Access Policy Attached to IAM Entity by Unusual 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).