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Persistence

Unmasking Lambda's Hidden Threat - When Your Bootstrap Becomes a Backdoor

Lambda Bootstrap

So, you've jumped on the serverless bandwagon, huh? All that auto-scaling, no servers to patch, just pure code magic. It feels invincible, right? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but even in the land of ephemeral functions, bad actors are finding ways to stick around longer than an awkward family dinner. Today, we're pulling back the curtain on one of those particularly sneaky tricks: achieving persistence in AWS Lambda by messing with its very heart – the custom runtime bootstrap file.

Stealthy Persistence in AWS - A Practical Simulation for Defenders

In the world of cloud cybersecurity, attackers are always innovating. As defenders, it's crucial not only to understand attack techniques but also to simulate them to strengthen our own defenses. Recently, an analysis from Datadog and insights from a security analyst Eduard Agavriloae shed light on a particularly cunning persistence technique in AWS: the use of API Gateway and Lambda Functions for credential exfiltration, with a "twist" that makes it even harder to detect.

This article breaks down how an attacker might implement this technique and, more importantly, how we can simulate it in our own environment to fine-tune our detection and prevention capabilities.