AWS S3 Bucket Enumeration or Brute Force
Identifies a high number of failed S3 operations against a single bucket from a single source address within a short timeframe. This activity can indicate attempts to collect bucket objects or cause an increase in…
Description
Identifies a high number of failed S3 operations against a single bucket from a single source address within a short timeframe. This activity can indicate attempts to collect bucket objects or cause an increase in billing to an account via internal "AccessDenied" errors.
Detection logic
Its licence does not clear it for publishing here
Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.
Detection requirements
- Platform
- IaaSLinuxmacOSOffice SuiteSaaSWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 4 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.
- Log source category
- event_index
Known benign triggers
- External account IDs or broken automation may trigger this rule. For AccessDenied (HTTP 403 Forbidden), S3 doesn't charge the bucket owner when the request is initiated outside of the bucket owner's individual AWS account or the bucket owner's AWS organization.
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/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/ErrorCodeBilling.html | Only this detection cites it |
| medium.com/@maciej.pocwierz/how-an-empty-s3-bucket-can-make-your-aws-bill-explode-934a383cb8b1 | Only this detection cites it |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- 5f0234fd-7f21-42af-8391-511d5fd11d5c
- Tagged by the source as
- Data Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: AWSData Source: AWS CloudTrailData Source: AWS S3Domain: CloudNoise: HighPerformance: NormalPlatform: AWSProfile: AggressiveResources: Investigation GuideRule Type: ThresholdService: AWS S3Tactic: CollectionTactic: DiscoveryTactic: ImpactThreat: Brute ForceUse Case: Log Auditing
Licence
- Published under
- Elastic License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Sep 20, 2026
- Version
- 3