High-confidence secret in EC2 user-data

Severity: Critical
Service: Secrets exposure
Check ID: SECRETS_EC2_USERDATA_HIGH

What this check finds

An EC2 instance user-data script contains a high-confidence credential pattern. User-data is readable by anyone with ec2:DescribeInstanceAttribute on the instance and is logged in CloudTrail.

Passing looks like: No secrets in EC2 user-data.

How to fix it

Remove secrets from user-data. Use the instance IAM role to fetch credentials from Secrets Manager or SSM at boot time instead of hardcoding them in user-data.

Compliance controls it is evidence for

A failing result counts against these controls in KloudLytics; a passing one is evidence towards them. How compliance mapping works

Compliance controls mapped to High-confidence secret in EC2 user-data
Framework	Controls
NIST SP 800-53 Rev5 (Moderate)	IA-5 Authenticator Management
NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0	PR.AA-01 Identities and credentials are managed
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A	A.5.17 Authentication information

Checked on every scan

KloudLytics runs this check each time it scans a connected AWS account, through a read-only role, and lists every affected resource with its region. On Pro and Business a fix is written for the specific resource rather than the general case above. The exact access it needs

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