Elastic Security Detection Rules

AWS EC2 Export Task

Last updated 19 days ago on 2025-10-23
Created 19 days ago on 2025-10-23

About

Identifies successful export tasks of EC2 instances via the APIs CreateInstanceExportTask, ExportImage, or CreateStoreImageTask. These exports can be used by administrators for legitimate VM migration or backup workflows however, an attacker with access to an EC2 instance or AWS credentials can export a VM or its image and then transfer it off-account for exfiltration of data.
Tags
Domain: CloudData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWS EC2Use Case: Asset VisibilityTactic: ExfiltrationTactic: CollectionLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Transfer Data to Cloud Account (T1537)(opens in a new tab or window)

Collection (TA0009)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Data from Local System (T1005)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Automated Collection (T1119)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Data from Cloud Storage (T1530)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
VM export and EC2 image creation may be done by system administrators, DevOps or migration teams as part of planned maintenance, disaster-recovery or known backup methods. Verify whether the user identity, user agent, and/or hostname should be making changes in your environment. Exports from unfamiliar users or hosts should be investigated. If known behavior is causing false positives, it can be exempted from the rule.
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: "ec2.amazonaws.com" and 
    event.action: ("CreateInstanceExportTask" or "ExportImage" or "CreateStoreImageTask") and 
    event.outcome: "success"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS EC2 Export Task 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).