A comprehensive technical analysis of how attackers exploit machine identities to establish persistent access across cloud environments. This attack graph demonstrates the progression from initial credential exposure through full cloud identity control.
Attack Flow Overview: The 10-Stage Chain
This identity attack graph maps the complete lifecycle of a machine identity compromise, from initial exposure through persistent backdoor establishment. Each stage builds on previous access, creating cascading control across cloud infrastructure.
01
Machine Identity Credential Exposure
Service Principal secrets leaked from repositories, pipelines, VMs, or containers
02
Attacker Authentication as SP
Bypassing MFA and Conditional Access controls entirely
03
Machine-Level Privilege Enumeration
Review roles, app permissions, and vault access mappings
04
Lateral API Calls Using Machine Identity
Access storage accounts, key vaults, and automation systems
05
Token Issuance & Persistence Expansion
Collection of OAuth and refresh tokens with extended lifetimes
Mid-Stage Attack Progression
Workload Pivot (CI/CD → Cloud → SaaS)
Service Principal leveraged to interact with pipelines, deployment agents, and cloud resource APIs across multiple environments
Secret Store Dump
Retrieve additional SP secrets, API keys, and certificates from misconfigured vaults and secrets managers
Create New Malicious Machine Identity
Register new Service Principal with elevated privileges and long-lived credentials
Persistence Achieved
Backdoor SP survives password resets, user offboarding, and CA policy updates
Cloud-Wide Identity Takeover
Complete control over roles, app permissions, Conditional Access, and logging configuration
Critical Attack Stages Explained
Stage 1: Secret Exposure → Initial Access
Machine identity compromises typically originate from secrets leaked in source code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, deployment agents, or container image layers. These credentials provide direct authentication without human interaction.
Stage 2: SP Authentication → Bypassing Controls
Service Principals authenticate without MFA or Conditional Access policies. Traditional human-centric security controls don't apply to machine identities, creating a significant blind spot.
Stages 3-5: Discovery → Token Persistence
Attackers enumerate privileges, make lateral API calls, and collect long-lived tokens. Machine identity tokens persist far longer than typical user sessions, remaining invisible to standard monitoring.
Stage 6: Workload Pivot Operations
Compromised credentials enable pivoting between CI/CD systems, cloud infrastructure, and SaaS platforms through automation agents. This creates multi-environment attack paths.
Advanced Persistence Techniques
Vault Dump → Keys Explosion
A single compromised machine identity often provides access to dozens of additional secrets stored in key vaults and secrets managers. This exponentially increases attacker capabilities and access scope across the entire cloud environment.
Backdoor Machine Creation
Attackers establish new Service Principals with elevated privileges as permanent backdoors. These malicious identities include long-lived secrets or certificates that are difficult to detect through standard security monitoring.
Full Cloud Identity Control
Once machine identity persistence is achieved, identity governance frameworks collapse. Attackers can modify cloud roles, app permissions, Conditional Access policies, and logging configurations to maintain access indefinitely.
Identity Attack Chain (IAC) Stage Mappings
This attack graph spans multiple stages of the Identity Attack Chain framework, demonstrating how machine identity compromise enables complete attack lifecycle execution.
Achieving full cloud identity control and governance collapse
Identity Misconfigurations Exploited
This attack chain exploits six critical identity misconfigurations across development, cloud, and session management domains. Each misconfiguration enables specific attack stages.
Missing privileged identity management controls for Service Principal registration
Related Breach Patterns
This attack graph aligns with five documented breach patterns from real-world identity compromise incidents. Understanding these patterns helps security teams recognize and respond to similar attack indicators.
Secrets manager compromise leading to mass credential disclosure
Threat Actor Attribution
Three primary threat actor categories actively exploit machine identity chains for persistent cloud access. These actors demonstrate sophisticated understanding of cloud identity architecture.
Actors compromising development and deployment infrastructure to inject malicious code or establish persistent backdoors. Target Service Principal credentials in build and release pipelines.
Detection & Mitigation Strategies
Detection Approaches
Monitor Service Principal authentication patterns for anomalies
Track token issuance and refresh token usage
Alert on new Service Principal creation with high privileges
Audit vault and secrets manager access logs
Detect unusual API call patterns from machine identities
Monitor for privilege escalation in Service Principal roles
Mitigation Controls
Implement short token lifetimes for machine identities
Require approval workflows for SP creation and modification
Apply least privilege principles to all Service Principals
Rotate secrets regularly using automated systems
Enable workload identity federation where possible
Implement comprehensive logging for all machine identities