H3XAOperational intelligence
Live analytical pictureEvidence before assessment
TypeTechnique
External ID—
First seen2026-08-14
Last seen2026-08-14

Confidence

—

Adversaries may attempt to modify hierarchical structures in infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) environments in order to evade defenses. IaaS environments often group resources into a hierarchy, enabling improved resource management and application of policies to relevant groups. Hierarchical structures differ among cloud providers. For example, in AWS environments, multiple accounts can be grouped under a single organization, while in Azure environments, multiple subscriptions can be grouped under a single management group.(Citation: AWS Organizations)(Citation: Microsoft Azure Resources) Adversaries may add, delete, or otherwise modify resource groups within an IaaS hierarchy. For example, in Azure environments, an adversary who has gained access to a Global Administrator account may create new subscriptions in which to deploy resources. They may also engage in subscription hijacking by transferring an existing pay-as-you-go subscription from a victim tenant to an adversary-controlled tenant. This will allow the adversary to use the victim’s compute resources without generating logs on the victim tenant.(Citation: Microsoft Peach Sandstorm 2023)(Citation: Microsoft Subscription Hijacking 2022) In AWS environments, adversaries with appropriate permissions in a given account may call the `LeaveOrganization` API, causing the account to be severed from the AWS Organization to which it was tied and removing any Service Control Policies, guardrails, or restrictions imposed upon it by its former Organization. Alternatively, adversaries may call the `CreateAccount` API in order to create a new account within an AWS Organization. This account will use the same payment methods registered to the payment account but may not be subject to existing detections or Service Control Policies.(Citation: AWS re Inforce Trust Mod)

3 recorded

Relationships

mitigates
from Audit
Mitigation
mitigatesMitigation
mitigatesMitigation
6 external

References

mitre-attack
T1666
open
AWS re Inforce Trust Mod
https://d1.awsstatic.com/onedam/marketing-channels/website/aws/en_US/events/approved/reinforce-2025/reinforce/2024/slides/TDR432_New-tactics-and-techniques-for-proactive-threat-detection.pdf
open
AWS Organizations
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_getting-started_concepts.html
open
Microsoft Subscription Hijacking 2022
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-defender-blog/hunt-for-compromised-azure-subscriptions-using-microsoft/ba-p/3607121
open
Microsoft Azure Resources
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/ready/azure-setup-guide/organize-resources
open
Microsoft Peach Sandstorm 2023
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/09/14/peach-sandstorm-password-spray-campaigns-enable-intelligence-collection-at-high-value-targets/
open