AWS IAM Permission Boundary or Guardrail Policy Deleted by Unusual Identity
Detects the first time an AWS identity successfully deletes an IAM managed policy whose ARN contains guardrail-related keywords (for example Boundary, Deny, Restrict, Guard, SCP, Guardrail). Adversaries who have…
Description
Detects the first time an AWS identity successfully deletes an IAM managed policy whose ARN contains guardrail-related keywords (for example Boundary, Deny, Restrict, Guard, SCP, Guardrail). Adversaries who have obtained elevated IAM privileges may delete policies to remove restrictive permissions boundaries, eliminate deny-based guardrails, or clean up after a privilege escalation operation. Infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi, and Ansible) are excluded because policy lifecycle management is a routine part of automated deployments. A policy deletion by an identity not seen performing this activity during the prior seven days may indicate newly compromised credentials being used to modify the account's permission structure.
Detection logic
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Detection requirements
- Platform
- ContainersESXiIaaSIdentity ProviderLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesOffice SuiteSaaSWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.
- Log source category
- event_index
Known benign triggers
- New IAM administrator roles, recently provisioned automation accounts, or first-time IaC deployments may legitimately delete policies for the first time. Validate that the identity is an authorized IAM management role and that the deleted policy was obsolete or replaced as part of a known change.
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
References
| Reference | Cited by |
|---|---|
| docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/APIReference/API_DeletePolicy.html | 3from 2 sources |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- f4a82031-9c8e-4b23-a7d5-6e1094b2c539
- Tagged by the source as
- Data Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWSData Source: AWS CloudTrailData Source: AWS IAMDomain: CloudNoise: UnknownPerformance: Very SlowPlatform: AWSProfile: AggressiveResources: Investigation GuideRule Type: New TermsService: AWS IAMTactic: Defense EvasionTactic: PersistenceUse Case: Identity and Access Audit
Licence
- Published under
- Elastic License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Sep 20, 2026
- Version
- 3