Query: SIEM correlation: persistence activity consistent with Additional Cloud Roles
Matching passage: T1098.003 Additional Cloud Roles. Tactics: persistence, privilege escalation. Description: An adversary may add additional roles or permissions to an adversary-controlled cloud account to maintain persistent access to a tenant. For example, adversaries may update IAM policies in cloud-based environments or add a new global administrator in Office 365 environments.(Citation: AWS IAM Policies and Permissions)(Citation: Google Cloud IAM Policies)(Citation: Microsoft Support O365 Add Another Admin, October 2019)(Citation: Microsoft O365 Admin Roles) With sufficient permissions, a compromised account can gain almost unlimited access to data and settings (including the ability to reset the passwords of other admins).(Citation: Expel AWS Attacker) (Citation: Microsoft O365 Admin Roles) This account modification may immediately follow [Create Account](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1136) or other malicious account activity. Adversaries may also modify existing [Valid Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078) that they have compromised. This could lead to privilege escalation, particularly if the roles added allow for lateral movement to additional accounts. For example, in AWS environments, an adversary with appropriate permissions may be able to use the <code>CreatePolicyVersion</code> API to define a new version of an IAM policy or the <code>AttachUserPolicy</code> API to attach an IAM policy with additional or distinct permissions to a compromised user account.(Citation: Rhino Security Labs AWS Privilege Escalation) In some cases, adversaries may add roles to adversary-controlled accounts outside the victim cloud tenant. This allows these external accounts to perform actions inside the victim tenant without requiring the adversary to [Create Account](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1136) or modify a victim-owned account.(Citation: Invictus IR DangerDev 2024)
Near-miss passage: T1098.007 Additional Local or Domain Groups. Tactics: persistence, privilege escalation. Description: An adversary may add additional local or domain groups to an adversary-controlled account to maintain persistent access to a system or domain. On Windows, accounts may use the `net localgroup` and `net group` commands to add existing users to local and domain groups.(Citation: Microsoft Net Localgroup)(Citation: Microsoft Net Group) On Linux, adversaries may use the `usermod` command for the same purpose.(Citation: Linux Usermod) For example, accounts may be added to the local administrators group on Windows devices to maintain elevated privileges. They may also be added to the Remote Desktop Users group, which allows them to leverage [Remote Desktop Protocol](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/001) to log into the endpoints in the future.(Citation: Microsoft RDP Logons) Adversaries may also add accounts to VPN user groups to gain future persistence on the network.(Citation: Cyber Security News) On Linux, accounts may be added to the sudoers group, allowing them to persistently leverage [Sudo and Sudo Caching](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1548/003) for elevated privileges. In Windows environments, machine accounts may also be added to domain groups. This allows the local SYSTEM account to gain privileges on the domain.(Citation: RootDSE AD Detection 2022)