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العربيةMint service-specific credential for user
Can mint service-specific (CodeCommit/Keyspaces) credentials for a user.
Grants escalation on its own.
iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredentialOn its own, iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredential can mint service-specific (CodeCommit/Keyspaces) credentials for a user. On a wide resource scope that alone reaches usable credentials.
Why it is dangerous
A principal can call iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredential to mint a fresh long-lived service-specific credential (Git-over-HTTPS for CodeCommit, or Amazon Keyspaces/Cassandra) for the user without knowing any of the target user's existing secrets. From then on the principal can authenticate to those services as the target user. The credential is independent of the target user's password and access keys and survives their rotation, so it is both a takeover of the target user's service access and a durable persistence foothold, narrower in blast radius than a full access key.
In MITRE ATT&CK terms this maps to T1098.001, Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials, under the persistence tactic. AWS records it in CloudTrail as CreateServiceSpecificCredential. The call shows up in CloudTrail but blends into normal administration, so it needs a rule to stand out. It also gives an attacker a way to keep access after the first foothold is closed, so it is worth watching even when it looks like routine administration.
Detection
CreateServiceSpecificCredentialPrerequisites
Target user exists; the value depends on which services the user can reach (CodeCommit, Amazon Keyspaces).
Tactic
Persistence
A control that would remove it: Remove iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredential / iam:ResetServiceSpecificCredential from the principal.
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 iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredential allow?
Can mint service-specific (CodeCommit/Keyspaces) credentials for a user.
Can iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredential escalate privileges on its own?
Yes. Held on a broad enough resource it reaches usable credentials with no other permission.
How is mint service-specific credential for user detected?
Watch for CreateServiceSpecificCredential in CloudTrail. The call shows up in CloudTrail but blends into normal administration, so it needs a rule to stand out.
How do you break this path?
A control that would remove it is: Remove iam:CreateServiceSpecificCredential / iam:ResetServiceSpecificCredential from the principal. 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?
T1098.001, Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials, under the persistence 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.