Detect Cloud Secrets Management Stores in Sumo Logic CSE
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. If an adversary gains sufficient privileges in a cloud environment, they may request secrets via API calls such as get-secret-value (AWS), gcloud secrets describe (GCP), and az key vault secret show (Azure). This technique has been used by HAFNIUM, Storm-0501, Scattered Spider, and ScarletEel.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Credential Access
- Technique
- T1555 Credentials from Password Stores
- Sub-technique
- T1555.006 Cloud Secrets Management Stores
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1555/006/
Sumo Detection Query
(_sourceCategory=aws/cloudtrail OR _sourceCategory=azure/audit OR _sourceCategory=gcp/audit) earliest=-24h
| json auto
| where eventName in ("GetSecretValue","ListSecrets","DescribeSecret","BatchGetSecretValue")
OR operationName matches "*KeyVault*Secret*"
OR methodName matches "*AccessSecretVersion*"
| if (eventName in ("GetSecretValue","ListSecrets","DescribeSecret","BatchGetSecretValue"), "AWS",
if (operationName matches "*KeyVault*", "Azure", "GCP")) as cloud_provider
| count(*) as SecretAccessCount, count_distinct(requestParameters_secretId) as UniqueSecrets
by userIdentity_arn, sourceIPAddress, cloud_provider
| where SecretAccessCount > 10 or UniqueSecrets > 5
| sort by SecretAccessCount descSumo Logic search across cloud audit source categories for secrets management operations over the last 24 hours. Uses json auto parsing to extract operation names and actor fields, then aggregates by identity and source IP. Alerts when an actor exceeds 10 access events or touches more than 5 distinct secret IDs, matching the threshold logic of the reference KQL/SPL detections for T1555.006.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- Centralised secrets-proxy sidecars or vault agent deployments that retrieve credentials on behalf of many downstream containers, producing high per-identity counts from a narrow set of cluster node IPs
- Cloud security posture management platforms performing periodic full-environment enumeration of secrets vault contents for tagging compliance or orphaned-secret detection
- Developer workstations running integration test suites against a shared staging vault that seeds and reads a large number of ephemeral test secrets in rapid succession
Other platforms for T1555.006
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 3 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Enumerate AWS Secrets Manager secrets
Expected signal: AWS CloudTrail: ListSecrets event followed by GetSecretValue event, both with the caller's IAM identity ARN and source IP. Events appear in CloudTrail within 5-15 minutes.
- Test 2Retrieve Azure Key Vault secret
Expected signal: Azure Key Vault diagnostic logs: SecretList and SecretGet operations with caller IP and identity. Azure AD audit log entry for the service principal or user identity.
- Test 3Access GCP Secret Manager secret
Expected signal: GCP Cloud Audit Log: Admin Activity log for ListSecrets, Data Access log for AccessSecretVersion. Both events contain the principal email and source IP.
References (7)
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1555/006/
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/retrieving-secrets.html
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/secrets/quick-create-cli
- https://cloud.google.com/secret-manager/docs/view-secret-details
- https://sysdig.com/blog/scarleteel-2-0/
- https://permiso.io/blog/lucr-3-scattered-spider-getting-saas-y-in-the-cloud
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1555.006/T1555.006.md
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