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العربيةSteal EBS volume by reattachment
Can detach an EBS volume and reattach it to an attacker-controlled instance.
Grants escalation only in combination. All of these are needed together:
ec2:DetachVolumeec2:AttachVolumeec2:DetachVolume can detach an EBS volume and reattach it to an attacker-controlled instance, but only when it is held together with ec2:AttachVolume. Held together they reach access for an outside or public principal.
Why it is dangerous
A principal can call ec2:DetachVolume on the volume and ec2:AttachVolume to reattach it to an instance it controls, then mount and read the filesystem offline. This bypasses every OS-level and application-level control on the original host - no snapshot is created and no data-plane credential is needed, the disk simply changes owner.
In MITRE ATT&CK terms this maps to T1005, Data from Local System, under the collection tactic. AWS records it in CloudTrail as DetachVolume, AttachVolume. The call is loud in CloudTrail and stands out from normal activity.
Detection
DetachVolumeAttachVolumePrerequisites
An attacker-controlled EC2 instance in the volume's Availability Zone; kms:Decrypt/CreateGrant on the CMK if the volume is encrypted.
MITRE ATT&CK
T1005 · Data from Local SystemTactic
Collection
A control that would remove it: Restrict ec2:DetachVolume / ec2:AttachVolume to the instances and volumes that need them; encrypt volumes with a CMK the principal cannot use.
Whether to apply it depends on how the permission is used in your environment, so it is a business decision rather than an automatic fix. The same permission can be load-bearing in one account and pure risk in another.
Pathbreak confirms whether this path resolves in your account, ranks it against the others by how much it opens up, and uses your threat model and business context to show which paths are worth cutting.
Questions
What does ec2:DetachVolume allow?
Can detach an EBS volume and reattach it to an attacker-controlled instance.
What else is needed for ec2:DetachVolume to be dangerous?
It becomes an escalation only when held together with ec2:AttachVolume. On its own it is not enough, which is what makes the combination easy to miss.
How is steal EBS volume by reattachment detected?
Watch for DetachVolume, AttachVolume in CloudTrail. The call is loud in CloudTrail and stands out from normal activity.
How do you break this path?
A control that would remove it is: Restrict ec2:DetachVolume / ec2:AttachVolume to the instances and volumes that need them; encrypt volumes with a CMK the principal cannot use. Whether to apply it depends on how the permission is used in your account, so it is a business decision rather than an automatic fix.
Which MITRE ATT&CK technique is this?
T1005, Data from Local System, under the collection tactic.
Related paths
References
Find this in your own account
We run a read-only scan of one AWS account and show you which of these paths exist, ranked by blast radius, with the change that breaks each one. First validated paths within the hour.