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العربيةSelf-grant Lake Formation data access
Can self-grant Lake Formation permissions on a governed table, then read it.
Grants escalation on its own.
lakeformation:GrantPermissionsOn its own, lakeformation:GrantPermissions can self-grant Lake Formation permissions on a governed table, then read it. On a wide resource scope that alone reaches access for an outside or public principal.
Why it is dangerous
A principal can call lakeformation:GrantPermissions to grant itself SELECT (or ALL) on governed the table, then query the table and the S3 data it catalogs. Lake Formation is the authorization layer over the data lake, so self-granting inside it bypasses the absence of a table-level grant: the attacker rewrites the lock rather than holding a key, turning control of the grant API into read access to the governed data.
In MITRE ATT&CK terms this maps to T1098, Account Manipulation, under the privilege escalation tactic. AWS records it in CloudTrail as GrantPermissions, PutDataLakeSettings. The call shows up in CloudTrail but blends into normal administration, so it needs a rule to stand out.
Detection
GrantPermissionsPutDataLakeSettingsPrerequisites
lakeformation:GrantPermissions (or PutDataLakeSettings to self-promote to LF admin). The abuse additionally assumes no SCP/boundary/PrincipalOrgID guardrail and that Lake Formation's own grant rules permit the grant; reading the table needs glue:GetTable plus the Athena/Glue data path.
MITRE ATT&CK
T1098 · Account ManipulationTactic
Privilege Escalation
A control that would remove it: Restrict lakeformation:GrantPermissions and lakeformation:PutDataLakeSettings to data-lake admins; deny LF grant/admin writes via SCP; review Data Lake settings and the set of LF administrators.
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 lakeformation:GrantPermissions allow?
Can self-grant Lake Formation permissions on a governed table, then read it.
Can lakeformation:GrantPermissions escalate privileges on its own?
Yes. Held on a broad enough resource it reaches access for an outside or public principal with no other permission.
How is self-grant Lake Formation data access detected?
Watch for GrantPermissions, PutDataLakeSettings 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: Restrict lakeformation:GrantPermissions and lakeformation:PutDataLakeSettings to data-lake admins; deny LF grant/admin writes via SCP; review Data Lake settings and the set of LF administrators. 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, Account Manipulation, under the privilege escalation tactic.
Related paths
References
Find this in your own account
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