IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

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GCP Service Account Key Creation

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GCP Service Account Key Creation

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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: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-6m (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: 7 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.10.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positives

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Service account keys may be created by system administrators. Verify that the configuration change was expected. Exceptions can be added to this rule to filter expected behavior.

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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

Threat mapping

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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/

Rule version history

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Version 7 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

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

Version 5 (7.13.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 4 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 3 (7.11.2 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.11.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

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

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