Curl-url-http-3a-2f-2f169.254.169.254-2flatest-2fapi-2ftoken [ Limited Time ]

-H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 21600" : Sets the token to live for 6 hours (21600 seconds) before it expires. Step 2: Using the Token

The IP address 169.254.169.254 is a link-local address utilized by major cloud providers, most notably AWS. It hosts the Instance Metadata Service (IMDS).

With these three strings, an attacker can impersonate your EC2 instance from anywhere in the world. curl-url-http-3A-2F-2F169.254.169.254-2Flatest-2Fapi-2Ftoken

The keyword includes an encoded URL. Decoded, it reads: curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token .

The keyword curl-url-http-3A-2F-2F169.254.169.254-2Flatest-2Fapi-2Ftoken is more than a technical curiosity. It is a and a blue team alarm bell . With these three strings, an attacker can impersonate

Understanding curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token : The Heart of AWS IMDSv2 Security

: Stores the resulting cryptographic string so it can be passed to subsequent metadata queries like this: The keyword curl-url-http-3A-2F-2F169

To understand why the /latest/api/token path is necessary, one must look at how cloud metadata security evolved. IMDSv1: The Request/Response Model

Here's what you might do with curl to get an API token:

The introduction of brought a mandatory, session-oriented approach to metadata retrieval. The cornerstone of this new security posture is the API token request command:

To successfully execute this request, you must use the PUT method and include a header specifying the token's Time-to-Live (TTL). If you are running this directly on an EC2 instance: