Privilege Escalation: Default Compute Engine Service Account SetIAMPolicy
Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
This document describes a threat finding type in Security Command Center. Threat findings are generated by
threat detectors when they detect
a potential threat in your cloud resources. For a full list of available threat findings, see Threat findings index.
Overview
The default Compute Engine service account was used to set the
IAM policy for a Cloud Run service. This is a
potential post exploit action when a Compute Engine token is compromised from
a serverless service.
How to respond
To respond to this finding, do the following:
Review the audit logs in Cloud Logging to determine if this was expected
activity by the principal.
Determine whether there are other signs of malicious activity by the
principal in the logs.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-10 UTC."],[],[],null,["| Premium and Enterprise [service tiers](/security-command-center/docs/service-tiers)\n\nThis document describes a threat finding type in Security Command Center. Threat findings are generated by\n[threat detectors](/security-command-center/docs/concepts-security-sources#threats) when they detect\na potential threat in your cloud resources. For a full list of available threat findings, see [Threat findings index](/security-command-center/docs/threat-findings-index).\n\nOverview\n\nThe default Compute Engine service account was used to set the\nIAM policy for a Cloud Run service. This is a\npotential post exploit action when a Compute Engine token is compromised from\na serverless service.\n\nHow to respond\n\nTo respond to this finding, do the following:\n\n1. Review the audit logs in Cloud Logging to determine if this was expected activity by the principal.\n2. Determine whether there are other signs of malicious activity by the principal in the logs.\n\nWhat's next\n\n- Learn [how to work with threat\n findings in Security Command Center](/security-command-center/docs/how-to-investigate-threats).\n- Refer to the [Threat findings index](/security-command-center/docs/threat-findings-index).\n- Learn how to [review a\n finding](/security-command-center/docs/how-to-investigate-threats#reviewing_findings) through the Google Cloud console.\n- Learn about the [services that\n generate threat findings](/security-command-center/docs/concepts-security-sources#threats)."]]