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The Pathbreak Attack Map for AWS / Organizations
Resource exposure Organizations T1098 Persistence

Grant org access via resource policy

Can grant an external/member principal management access to the org.

Grants escalation on its own.

organizations:PutResourcePolicy
Key takeaway

On its own, organizations:PutResourcePolicy can grant an external/member principal management access to the org. On a wide resource scope that alone reaches access for an outside or public principal.

PutResourcePolicy shares out to external 01 Attacker principal 02 Resource 03 Shared out 04 External account
How an attacker moves from this permission.
Explore this in Pathbreak

Why it is dangerous

A principal can call organizations:PutResourcePolicy to grant an external or member principal management access to the organization via its resource policy.

In MITRE ATT&CK terms this maps to T1098, Account Manipulation, under the privilege escalation tactic. AWS records it in CloudTrail as PutResourcePolicy. 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

PutResourcePolicy

Prerequisites

organizations:PutResourcePolicy from the management account.

MITRE ATT&CK

T1098 · Account Manipulation

Tactic

Privilege Escalation

Breaking the path

A control that would remove it: Restrict organizations:PutResourcePolicy to a break-glass management-account role.

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 organizations:PutResourcePolicy allow?

Can grant an external/member principal management access to the org.

Can organizations:PutResourcePolicy 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 grant org access via resource policy detected?

Watch for PutResourcePolicy 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 organizations:PutResourcePolicy to a break-glass management-account role. 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

Same techniqueSelf-grant Lambda invoke via resource policylambda:AddPermissionSame techniqueSelf-grant S3 read via bucket policys3:PutBucketPolicySame techniqueSelf-grant KMS Decrypt via grantkms:CreateGrantSame techniqueSelf-grant KMS decrypt via key policykms:PutKeyPolicySame techniqueSelf-grant secret read via resource policysecretsmanager:PutResourcePolicySame techniqueRegister delegated administratororganizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator

References

  • https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/

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.

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