LoFP / legitimate administrators may add lifecycle expiration configurations to reduce storage costs or enforce retention policies. confirm whether this change aligns with an approved data management policy or infrastructure-as-code workflow. known lifecycle automation processes (e.g., cost-management tools, data-lifecycle governance jobs) can be safely excluded from alerting once verified.

Techniques

• T1070
• T1485
• T1562

Sample rules

AWS S3 Bucket Expiration Lifecycle Configuration Added

• source: elastic
• technicques:
  • T1070
  • T1485
  • T1562

Description

Identifies the addition of an expiration lifecycle configuration to an Amazon S3 bucket. S3 lifecycle rules can automatically delete or transition objects after a defined period. Adversaries can abuse them by configuring auto-deletion of logs, forensic evidence, or sensitive objects to cover their tracks. This rule detects the use of the PutBucketLifecycle or PutBucketLifecycleConfiguration APIs with Expiration parameters, which may indicate an attempt to automate the removal of data to hinder investigation or maintain operational secrecy after malicious activity.

Detection logic

info where event.dataset == "aws.cloudtrail"
   and event.action == "PutBucketLifecycle"
   and event.outcome == "success"
   and stringContains(aws.cloudtrail.request_parameters, "Expiration=")