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العربيةAttach admin to Identity Center permission set
Can attach AdministratorAccess to a provisioned permission set and push it.
Grants escalation only in combination. All of these are needed together:
sso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSetsso:ProvisionPermissionSetsso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet can attach AdministratorAccess to a provisioned permission set and push it, but only when it is held together with sso:ProvisionPermissionSet. Held together they reach administrator access.
Why it is dangerous
A principal can call sso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet to add AdministratorAccess to permission the set, then sso:ProvisionPermissionSet to push the change into every account the set is assigned to, turning a scoped federated role into an org-wide administrator.
In MITRE ATT&CK terms this maps to T1098.003, Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles, under the privilege escalation tactic. AWS records it in CloudTrail as AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet, ProvisionPermissionSet. 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
AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSetProvisionPermissionSetPrerequisites
The permission set is provisioned into this account; caller is in the Org management or a delegated-admin account.
Tactic
Privilege Escalation
A control that would remove it: Restrict sso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet / ProvisionPermissionSet to a break-glass role; alarm on the events.
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 sso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet allow?
Can attach AdministratorAccess to a provisioned permission set and push it.
What else is needed for sso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet to be dangerous?
It becomes an escalation only when held together with sso:ProvisionPermissionSet. On its own it is not enough, which is what makes the combination easy to miss.
How is attach admin to Identity Center permission set detected?
Watch for AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet, ProvisionPermissionSet 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 sso:AttachManagedPolicyToPermissionSet / ProvisionPermissionSet to a break-glass role; alarm on the events. 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?
T1098.003, Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles, under the privilege escalation 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.