Package Runtime Secret File Access Followed by IMDS Request

Description

Identifies a Python, Node.js, Bun, Deno, Ruby, PHP or Perl runtime, or a binary executing from a package install location, that opens a developer secret (SSH keys, package registry tokens, source control credentials or AI coding assistant credentials) and then connects to a cloud instance metadata service (IMDS) endpoint within one minute. This sequence matches credential stealers delivered through compromised packages, such as the malicious LiteLLM PyPI releases, while cloud provider credential files are excluded because legitimate cloud SDK credential chains read them before falling back to IMDS.

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: Containers IaaS Identity Provider Linux macOS Network Devices Office Suite SaaS Windows
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

AI coding assistants running on cloud instances may read their own credential file and then fall back to the instance metadata service for cloud provider authentication (for example Gemini CLI on Google Compute Engine). Confirm the process is the assistant itself and that the credential file belongs to that assistant.
Developer or deployment scripts running on cloud-hosted macOS or Windows instances may read a package registry or source control token and then request instance role credentials from the same interpreter (for example a release script that publishes a package and uploads artifacts with the instance role). Validate the script path, parent process and whether the host is an approved build or release system.

References

Links the source published beside this detection. Reference is the link the source wrote, unmodified. Class is decided by this catalogue from the host and path, not stated by the source. Cited by counts published detections citing the same resource, including this one, and the sources beneath it count the repositories this catalogue ingests, which is not the same as independent research.
Reference	Class	Cited by
attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/005/	Taxonomy	3from 2 sources
hackingthe.cloud/aws/general-knowledge/intro_metadata_service/	Unclassified	5
www.wiz.io/blog/litellm-compromised-steals-credentials	Threat report	Only this detection cites it

Detection rules

Package Runtime Secret File Access Followed by IMDS Request

Description

Detection logic

Detection requirements

Known benign triggers

MITRE ATT&CK mappings

References

From the source

Licence

Authorship

Detection rules