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T1485.001 Lifecycle-Triggered Deletion

Adversaries may modify the lifecycle policies of a cloud storage bucket to destroy all objects stored within.

Cloud storage buckets often allow users to set lifecycle policies to automate the migration, archival, or deletion of objects after a set period of time.124 If a threat actor has sufficient permissions to modify these policies, they may be able to delete all objects at once.

For example, in AWS environments, an adversary with the PutLifecycleConfiguration permission may use the PutBucketLifecycle API call to apply a lifecycle policy to an S3 bucket that deletes all objects in the bucket after one day.53 In addition to destroying data for purposes of extortion and Financial Theft, adversaries may also perform this action on buckets storing cloud logs for Indicator Removal.6

Item Value
ID T1485.001
Sub-techniques T1485.001
Tactics TA0040
Platforms IaaS
Version 1.1
Created 25 September 2024
Last Modified 15 April 2025

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1053 Data Backup Consider implementing IT disaster recovery plans that contain procedures for taking regular data backups that can be used to restore organizational data.7 Ensure backups are stored off system and protected from common methods adversaries may use to gain access and destroy the backups to prevent recovery.
M1018 User Account Management In cloud environments, limit permissions to modify cloud bucket lifecycle policies (e.g., PutLifecycleConfiguration in AWS) to only those accounts that require it. In AWS environments, consider using Service Control policies to limit the use of the PutBucketLifecycle API call.

References

  1. AWS. (n.d.). Managing the lifecycle of objects. Retrieved September 25, 2024. ↩

  2. Google Cloud. (n.d.). Object Lifecycle Management. Retrieved September 25, 2024. ↩

  3. Halcyon RISE Team. (2025, January 13). Abusing AWS Native Services: Ransomware Encrypting S3 Buckets with SSE-C. Retrieved March 18, 2025. ↩

  4. Microsoft Azure. (2024, July 3). Configure a lifecycle management policy. Retrieved September 25, 2024. ↩

  5. Ofir Balassiano and Ofir Shaty. (2023, November 29). Ransomware in the Cloud: Breaking Down the Attack Vectors. Retrieved September 25, 2024. ↩

  6. Stratus Red Team. (n.d.). CloudTrail Logs Impairment Through S3 Lifecycle Rule. Retrieved September 25, 2024. ↩

  7. Ready.gov. (n.d.). IT Disaster Recovery Plan. Retrieved March 15, 2019. ↩