GCP IAM Service Account Key Deletion

edit

Identifies the deletion of an Identity and Access Management (IAM) service account key in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Each service account is associated with two sets of public/private RSA key pairs that are used to authenticate. If a key is deleted, the application will no longer be able to access Google Cloud resources using that key. A security best practice is to rotate your service account keys regularly.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

  • filebeat-*

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-6m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Cloud
  • GCP
  • Continuous Monitoring
  • SecOps
  • Identity and Access

Version: 1

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.10.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License

Potential false positives

edit

Service account key deletions may be done by a system or network administrator. Verify whether the user email, resource name, and/or hostname should be making changes in your environment. Key deletions from unfamiliar users or hosts should be investigated. If known behavior is causing false positives, it can be exempted from the rule.

Investigation guide

edit

The GCP Filebeat module must be enabled to use this rule.

Rule query

edit
event.dataset:googlecloud.audit and
event.action:google.iam.admin.v*.DeleteServiceAccountKey and
event.outcome:success

Threat mapping

edit

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM