{"description":"Trending threats, MITRE ATT\u0026CK coverage, and detection metadata. Fed continuously.","favicon":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/favicon-32x32.png","feed_url":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/tags/aws-kms/feed.json","home_page_url":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/","icon":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/apple-touch-icon.png","items":[{"_cs_actors":[],"_cs_cpes":[],"_cs_cves":[],"_cs_exploited":false,"_cs_has_poc":false,"_cs_poc_references":[],"_cs_products":["AWS Key Management Service"],"_cs_severities":["medium"],"_cs_tags":["impact","cloud-security","aws-kms","incident-response"],"_cs_type":"advisory","_cs_vendors":["Amazon"],"content_html":"\u003cp\u003eAdversaries targeting AWS environments may attempt to disable or schedule the deletion of Customer Managed KMS keys to disrupt service availability and cause permanent data loss. Because KMS keys underpin the encryption for critical services such as S3, EBS, RDS, Secrets Manager, and Lambda, controlling these keys provides an attacker with a high-impact lever to sabotage an organization. This activity is typically observed in later stages of an intrusion, where an attacker seeks to hide evidence of prior exfiltration, prevent recovery from ransomware, or impede incident response by destroying access to encrypted forensic data and backups. Defenders should monitor for highly privileged KMS lifecycle API calls that deviate from established infrastructure-as-code deployment patterns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"attack-chain\"\u003eAttack Chain\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker gains initial access to the AWS environment through compromised IAM credentials or over-privileged service roles.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker performs internal reconnaissance to identify critical KMS keys and the AWS services they protect (e.g., S3 buckets, RDS instances).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker uses compromised credentials to execute the \u003ccode\u003eDisableKey\u003c/code\u003e API call via AWS CLI or SDK to immediately halt encryption/decryption operations for targeted services.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker monitors service health or application logs to confirm the disruption of operations.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker executes the \u003ccode\u003eScheduleKeyDeletion\u003c/code\u003e API call, initiating a mandatory waiting period before the key and its associated material are permanently destroyed.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker leverages the resulting downtime or recovery chaos to exfiltrate remaining data or obfuscate their activities.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAttacker objective achieved: permanent data loss and environmental sabotage.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"impact\"\u003eImpact\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuccessful manipulation of KMS lifecycle states results in immediate loss of access to encrypted data stored in S3, EBS volumes, or RDS databases. Once the pending deletion window expires, this data becomes permanently unrecoverable, causing severe business disruption, potential regulatory compliance failures, and the total loss of forensic evidence required for incident response.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"recommendation\"\u003eRecommendation\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDeploy the provided detection rule to monitor for \u003ccode\u003eDisableKey\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003eScheduleKeyDeletion\u003c/code\u003e events in AWS CloudTrail logs.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRestrict the \u003ccode\u003ekms:DisableKey\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003ekms:ScheduleKeyDeletion\u003c/code\u003e permissions to a minimal set of highly privileged administrator identities using IAM policies or Service Control Policies (SCPs).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEnable AWS Config rules to monitor and alert on the state of KMS keys.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRequire multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all IAM principals authorized to perform KMS management operations.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eImplement tagging and naming conventions to distinguish between critical production KMS keys and ephemeral keys used in CI/CD pipelines to reduce false positives in detections.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n","date_modified":"2026-08-24T09:49:47Z","date_published":"2026-08-24T09:49:47Z","id":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/briefs/2026-08-aws-kms-lifecycle-manipulation/","summary":"Adversaries may disable or schedule the deletion of AWS KMS keys to sabotage business operations, render encrypted data unrecoverable, and obstruct forensic investigation or incident response efforts.","title":"AWS KMS Customer Managed Key Lifecycle Manipulation","url":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/briefs/2026-08-aws-kms-lifecycle-manipulation/"}],"language":"en","title":"CraftedSignal Threat Feed - Aws-Kms","version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1"}