| ID | Name |
|---|---|
| T1555.001 | Keychain |
| T1555.002 | Securityd Memory |
| T1555.003 | Credentials from Web Browsers |
| T1555.004 | Windows Credential Manager |
| T1555.005 | Password Managers |
| T1555.006 | Cloud Secrets Management Stores |
Adversaries may acquire credentials from cloud-native secret management solutions such as AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, Azure Key Vault, and Terraform Vault.
Secrets managers support the secure centralized management of passwords, API keys, and other credential material. Where secrets managers are in use, cloud services can dynamically acquire credentials via API requests rather than accessing secrets insecurely stored in plain text files or environment variables.
If an adversary is able to gain sufficient privileges in a cloud environment – for example, by obtaining the credentials of high-privileged Cloud Accounts or compromising a service that has permission to retrieve secrets – they may be able to request secrets from the secrets manager. This can be accomplished via commands such as get-secret-value in AWS, gcloud secrets describe in GCP, and az key vault secret show in Azure.[1][2][3][4][5]
Note: this technique is distinct from Cloud Instance Metadata API in that the credentials are being directly requested from the cloud secrets manager, rather than through the medium of the instance metadata API.
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| S9042 | CanisterWorm |
CanisterWorm has gathered credentials from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure.[6] |
| G0125 | HAFNIUM |
HAFNIUM has moved laterally from on-premises environments to steal passwords from Azure key vaults.[7] |
| S9043 | Mini Shai-Hulud |
Mini Shai-Hulud has captured credentials stored in cloud secret stores.[8][9][10][11][12] |
| S1091 | Pacu |
Pacu can retrieve secrets from the AWS Secrets Manager via the enum_secrets module.[13] |
| S9008 | Shai-Hulud |
Shai-Hulud has gathered secrets from AWS Secrets and GCP Secret Manager.[14][15][16] Shai-Hulud has also gathered data from Azure Key Vault.[15][16] |
| G1053 | Storm-0501 |
Storm-0501 has utilized Azure Key Vault to store the encryption key using the operation |
| G1056 | TeamPCP |
TeamPCP has used malware to exfiltrate cloud secrets from targeted environments including AWS, GCP, and Azure.[18][19][20][6] |
| S9041 | TeamPCP Cloud Stealer |
TeamPCP Cloud Stealer can enumerate multiple filesystem paths to extract credentials for AWS, GCP, and Azure including Identity Access Management (IAM) credentials.[21][22][23][18][24][24][20][6][25] |
| S9009 | TruffleHog |
TruffleHog can obtain secrets from AWS Secrets and GCP Secret Manager.[26][27] TruffleHog has also gathered passwords, secrets and API keys from source repositories, .env files, and git history.[15] |
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1026 | Privileged Account Management |
Limit the number of cloud accounts and services with permission to query the secrets manager to only those required. Ensure that accounts and services with permissions to query the secrets manager only have access to the secrets they require. |
| ID | Name | Analytic ID | Analytic Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DET0130 | Detect Unauthorized Access to Cloud Secrets Management Stores | AN0366 |
Detection of suspicious access to cloud-native secret management systems (AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault). Focuses on abnormal secret retrieval activity, such as secrets being accessed by unusual identities, from unexpected regions, outside business hours, or at high volume. Correlates API calls to secret retrieval with surrounding authentication events, role assumptions, and anomalous execution patterns. |