Classification:

attack

Tactic:

TA0040-impact

Technique:

T1496-resource-hijacking

VIEW RULE IN DATADOG VIEW SIGNALS

Goal

Detect when an attempt to create a GPU-based virtual machine (VM) instance in Google Compute Engine occurs.

Strategy

This rule monitors Google Cloud Audit Logs to determine when an attempt to create a GPU-based VM instance in Google Compute Engine has occurred. An attacker who has already gained initial access may try to create GPU-based VM instances with goal mining cryptocurrency.

Notes:

• This rule triggers with a Medium severity when the activity originates from an anonymizing proxy.
• This rule triggers with a High severity when the activity originates from an anonymizing proxy and more than 10 VM instances are created.

Triage and response

1. Reach out to the user or owner of the service account to determine if this action is legitimate.
2. If the action is legitimate, consider including the user in a suppression list. See this article on Best practices for creating detection rules with Datadog Cloud SIEM for more information.
3. Otherwise, use the Cloud SIEM - User Investigation dashboard to see if the user {{@usr.id}} has taken other actions.
4. If the results of the triage indicate that an attacker has taken the action, begin your company’s incident response process and an investigation.