GCP Service Account Key Creation

Identifies when a new key is created for a service account in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). A service account is a special type of account used by an application or a virtual machine (VM) instance, not a person. Applications use service accounts to make authorized API calls, authorized as either the service account itself, or as G Suite or Cloud Identity users through domain-wide delegation. If private keys are not tracked and managed properly, they can present a security risk. An adversary may create a new key for a service account in order to attempt to abuse the permissions assigned to that account and evade detection.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

filebeat-*
logs-gcp*

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

Runs every: 5m

Searches indices from: None (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

Elastic
Cloud
GCP
Continuous Monitoring
SecOps
Identity and Access

Version: 8

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## Setup

The GCP Fleet integration, Filebeat module, or similarly structured data is required to be compatible with this rule.

Rule query

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event.dataset:gcp.audit and event.action:google.iam.admin.v*.CreateServiceAccountKey and event.outcome:success

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Account Manipulation
- ID: T1098
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/

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