Track privileged tasks in AWS CloudTrail - AWS Identity and Access Management

Track privileged tasks in AWS CloudTrail

The AWS Organizations management account or a delegated administrator account for IAM can perform some root user tasks on member accounts using short-term root access. Short-term privileged sessions give you temporary credentials that you can scope to take privileged actions on a member account in your organization. You can use the following steps to identify the actions taken by the management account or a delegated administrator during the sts:AssumeRoot session.

Note

The global endpoint is not supported for sts:AssumeRoot. CloudTrail records ConsoleLogin events in the Region specified for the endpoint.

To track actions performed by a privileged session in CloudTrail logs

  1. Find the AssumeRoot event in your CloudTrail logs. This event is generated when your management account or the delegated administrator for IAM gets a set of short term credentials from sts:AssumeRoot.

    In the following example, the CloudTrail event for AssumeRoot is logged in the eventName field.

    {
    "eventVersion": "1.08",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "AssumedRole",
        "principalId": "AIDACKCEVSQ6C2EXAMPLE:JohnRole1",
        "arn": "arn:aws:sts::111111111111:assumed-role/John/JohnRole1",
        "accountId": "111111111111",
        "accessKeyId": "ASIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "sessionContext": {
            "sessionIssuer": {
                "type": "Role",
                "principalId": "AIDACKCEVSQ6C2EXAMPLE",
                "arn": "arn:aws:iam::111111111111:role/John",
                "accountId": "111111111111",
                "userName": "Admin2"
            },
            "webIdFederationData": {},
            "attributes": {
                "creationDate": "2024-10-25T20:45:28Z",
                "mfaAuthenticated": "false"
            },
            "assumedRoot": "true"
        }
    },
    "eventTime": "2024-10-25T20:52:11Z",
    "eventSource": "sts.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "AssumeRoot",
    "awsRegion": "us-west-2",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.1",    
    "requestParameters": {
        "targetPrincipal": "222222222222",
        "taskPolicyArn": {
            "arn": "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/root-task/S3UnlockBucketPolicy"
        }
    },
    "responseElements": {
        "credentials": {
            "accessKeyId": "ASIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
            "sessionToken": "wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY",
            "expiration": "Oct 25, 2024, 9:07:11 PM"
        }
    }
}

    For steps to access your CloudTrail logs, see Getting and viewing your CloudTrail log files in the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

  2. In the CloudTrail event log, locate the targetPrincipal that specifies the member account actions were taken on, and the accessKeyId that is unique to the AssumeRoot session.

    In the following example, the targetPrincipal is 222222222222 and the accessKeyId is ASIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE.

    "eventTime": "2024-10-25T20:52:11Z",
    "eventSource": "sts.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "AssumeRoot",
    "awsRegion": "us-west-2",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.1",    
    "requestParameters": {
        "targetPrincipal": "222222222222",
        "taskPolicyArn": {
            "arn": "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/root-task/S3UnlockBucketPolicy"
        }
    },
    "responseElements": {
        "credentials": {
            "accessKeyId": "ASIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
            "sessionToken": "wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY",
            "expiration": "Oct 25, 2024, 9:07:11 PM"
    }
}

  3. In the CloudTrail logs for the target principal, search for the access key ID that corresponds to the accessKeyId value from the AssumeRoot event. Use the eventName field values to determine the privileged tasks performed during the AssumeRoot session. There may be multiple privileged tasks performed in a single session. The maximum session duration for AssumeRoot is 900 seconds (15 minutes).

    In the following example, the management account or delegated administrator deleted the resource-based policy for an Amazon S3 bucket.

    {
    "eventVersion": "1.10",
    "userIdentity": {
        "type": "Root",
        "principalId": "222222222222",
        "arn": "arn:aws:iam::222222222222:root",
        "accountId": "222222222222",
        "accessKeyId": "ASIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
        "sessionContext": {
            "attributes": {
                "creationDate": "2024-10-25T20:52:11Z",
                "mfaAuthenticated": "false"
            }
        }
    },
    "eventTime": "2024-10-25T20:53:47Z",
    "eventSource": "s3.amazonaws.com",
    "eventName": "DeleteBucketPolicy",
    "awsRegion": "us-west-2",
    "sourceIPAddress": "192.0.2.1",
    "requestParameters": {
        "bucketName": "resource-policy-John",
        "Host": "resource-policy-John.s3.amazonaws.com",
        "policy": ""
    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "1234567890abcdef0",
    "eventID": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE11111",
    "readOnly": false,
    "resources": [
        {
            "accountId": "222222222222",
            "type": "AWS::S3::Bucket",
            "ARN": "arn:aws:s3:::resource-policy-John"
        }
    ],
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "managementEvent": true,
    "recipientAccountId": "222222222222",
    "eventCategory": "Management",
    "tlsDetails": {
        "tlsVersion": "TLSv1.3",
        "cipherSuite": "TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256",
        "clientProvidedHostHeader": "resource-policy-John.s3.amazonaws.com"
    }
}