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العربيةRegister delegated administrator
Can make an attacker account delegated admin of a security service org-wide.
Grants escalation on its own.
organizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministratorOn its own, organizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator can make an attacker account delegated admin of a security service org-wide. On a wide resource scope that alone reaches a standing way back in.
Why it is dangerous
A principal can call organizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator to make an attacker-controlled member account the delegated administrator of a security service (GuardDuty, Access Analyzer, Security Hub), gaining org-wide control of that control.
In MITRE ATT&CK terms this maps to T1098, Account Manipulation, under the persistence tactic. AWS records it in CloudTrail as RegisterDelegatedAdministrator. 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
RegisterDelegatedAdministratorPrerequisites
organizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator from the management or a delegated-admin account, and a controlled member account.
MITRE ATT&CK
T1098 · Account ManipulationTactic
Persistence
A control that would remove it: Restrict organizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator to a break-glass 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:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator allow?
Can make an attacker account delegated admin of a security service org-wide.
Can organizations:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator escalate privileges on its own?
Yes. Held on a broad enough resource it reaches a standing way back in with no other permission.
How is register delegated administrator detected?
Watch for RegisterDelegatedAdministrator 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:RegisterDelegatedAdministrator to a break-glass 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 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.