T1021.007sub-technique of T1021 Remote Services
Cloud Services
IaaS · Identity Provider · Office Suite · SaaSnothing on this site yetT1021.007 on attack.mitre.org
Adversaries may log into accessible cloud services within a compromised environment using Valid Accounts that are synchronized with or federated to on-premises user identities. The adversary may then perform management actions or access cloud-hosted resources as the logged-on user. Many enterprises federate centrally managed user identities to cloud services, allowing users to login with their domain credentials in order to access the cloud control plane.
If this is happening now
Checklists and playbooks to open while the alert is still live.
Cloud account compromise
Impossible travel, an unrecognised inbox rule, or a reported invoice-fraud attempt.
how MITRE says to see it
Behavioral Detection of Remote Cloud Logins via Valid Accounts
- Cloud login from atypical geolocation or user-agent string, followed by resource enumeration or infrastructure manipulation using cloud CLI/API
- Federated login using SSO or OAuth grant to cloud control plane, followed by directory or permissions enumeration
- Login to M365 or Google Workspace from CLI tools or unexpected source IPs, followed by mailbox or document access
- Remote access to third-party SaaS with OAuth or API tokens post-initial compromise, followed by sensitive data access or configuration changes
what reduces it
- M1026 Privileged Account Management. Limit the number of high-privileged domain and cloud accounts, and ensure that these are not used for day-to-day operations. Ensure that on-premises accounts do not have privileged cloud permissions and that isolated, cloud-only accounts are used for managing cloud environments.
- M1032 Multi-factor Authentication. Use multi-factor authentication on cloud services whenever possible.