Potential Malicious Usage of CloudTrail System Manager — Sigma Rule

Rule metadata and linked tags

Author: jamesc-grafana. Source status: test; severity: high. Source dates: 2024-07-11 / 2025-12-08.

{
  "product": "aws",
  "service": "cloudtrail"
}

Pinned original Sigma rule · Detection Rule License 1.1

Source SHA-256: 3d394a4a27a2af7c93034177c376f0358e13b29999074dda031334b7c92b2cc9

Detection logic

Original source YAML. Source-tag agreement is not proof of complete semantic coverage. This rule has not been compiled for a SIEM backend or validated against live telemetry here.

title: Potential Malicious Usage of CloudTrail System Manager
id: 38e7f511-3f74-41d4-836e-f57dfa18eead
status: test
description: |
    Detect when System Manager successfully executes commands against an instance.
references:
    - https://github.com/elastic/detection-rules/blob/v8.6.0/rules/integrations/aws/initial_access_via_system_manager.toml
author: jamesc-grafana
date: 2024-07-11
modified: 2025-12-08
tags:
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.initial-access
    - attack.t1566
    - attack.t1566.002
logsource:
    product: aws
    service: cloudtrail
detection:
    selection_event:
        eventName: 'SendCommand'
        eventSource: 'ssm.amazonaws.com'
    selection_status_success:
        errorCode: 'Success'
    selection_status_null:
        errorCode: null
    condition: selection_event and 1 of selection_status_*
falsepositives:
    - There are legitimate uses of SSM to send commands to EC2 instances
    - Legitimate users may have to use SSM to perform actions against machines in the Cloud to update or maintain them
level: high

Original YAML and metadata in JSON

False positives

• There are legitimate uses of SSM to send commands to EC2 instances
• Legitimate users may have to use SSM to perform actions against machines in the Cloud to update or maintain them

Source references

• https://github.com/elastic/detection-rules/blob/v8.6.0/rules/integrations/aws/initial_access_via_system_manager.toml