- Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) - Allows organizations to set up virtual private networks to route traffic from instances to their core services, such as S3 buckets. - Example: `curl https://mxrads-archives-packets-linux.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/beaconTest.html` will automatically route straight to S3 through Amazon's internal network, rather than going through the public internet. - This allows organizations to close access to the internet for instances while still retaining access to AWS services. - Look for this when you have RCE, RFI, or similar and you can't get the instance to reach out to the internet. Try uploading a file to an s3 bucket you control and curling the bucket instead; it might go through a VPC. - Can also be used as a C2 channel - Evading CloudWatch - Cannot disable, but can disrupt the trail for ingestion into automated tools and dashboards. - `aws cloudtrail update-trail --name default --no-include-global-service-events --no-is-multi-region --region=` - For best results, disable before doing quick API calls you need to be outside of the logging, then re-enable at least 20 minutes later. - Quickly grep Linux files looking for: - AWS keys - `grep -R "AKIA" -4 *` - S3 drivers used in Spark - `egrep -R "s3[a|n]://" *` - Dangerous permissions - `PassRole` - Allows users to assign any role to an instance, including an admin role. Allows full AWS account takeover.