How does EchelonGraph detect CIS GCP 1.3 violations?

EchelonGraph automatically detects CIS GCP 1.3 violations using scanner rule GCP-IAM-003. The scanner checks cloud infrastructure configurations in real-time and flags non-compliant resources.

What audit questions are asked for CIS GCP 1.3?

List all service account keys and their creation dates. What is your key rotation policy and how is it enforced? Are there any service account keys older than 90 days? Justify each. Have you evaluated Workload Identity Federation to eliminate keys?

🔷CIS GCP 1.3Rule: GCP-IAM-003high

Ensure service account keys are rotated within 90 days

Description

Service account keys must be rotated regularly to limit the window of exposure from compromised credentials.

⚠️ Risk Impact

Old service account keys are a prime target for attackers. Unrotated keys provide persistent access even after a breach is detected.

🔍 How EchelonGraph Detects This

GCP-IAM-003Automated scanner rule

EchelonGraph's Tier 1 Cloud Scanner automatically checks for this condition across all connected Google Cloud accounts. Violations are flagged as high-severity findings with remediation guidance.

🖥️ Manual Verification

terminal

gcloud iam service-accounts keys list --iam-account=SA_EMAIL --format='table(name,validAfterTime,validBeforeTime)'

🔧 Remediation

Delete keys older than 90 days and generate new ones. Use Workload Identity Federation to eliminate keys entirely.

💀 Real-World Attack Scenario

A CI/CD pipeline stored a GCP service account key in a Jenkins environment variable. The key was created 14 months ago and never rotated. When Jenkins was compromised through a known CVE, the attacker extracted the key and used it to access production BigQuery datasets for 3 weeks before the anomalous queries triggered an alert.

💰 Cost of Non-Compliance

CircleCI breach (2023): all customer secrets potentially exposed due to unrotated service account keys. Average time to detect compromised credentials: 292 days (IBM 2024). Each additional day of dwell time costs approximately $15K in breach damages.

📋 Audit Questions

1.List all service account keys and their creation dates.
2.What is your key rotation policy and how is it enforced?
3.Are there any service account keys older than 90 days? Justify each.
4.Have you evaluated Workload Identity Federation to eliminate keys?

🎯 MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

T1552.001 — Credentials in FilesT1098.001 — Additional Cloud Credentials

🏗️ Infrastructure as Code Fix

main.tf

# Eliminate keys entirely with Workload Identity Federation:
resource "google_iam_workload_identity_pool" "github" {
  workload_identity_pool_id = "github-pool"
  display_name              = "GitHub Actions Pool"
}
resource "google_iam_workload_identity_pool_provider" "github" {
  workload_identity_pool_id          = google_iam_workload_identity_pool.github.workload_identity_pool_id
  workload_identity_pool_provider_id = "github-provider"
  attribute_mapping = {
    "google.subject" = "assertion.sub"
  }
  oidc { issuer_uri = "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" }
}

⚡ Common Pitfalls

⛔Rotating the key but not updating all services that reference it, causing outages
⛔Storing rotated keys in version control, creating a history of valid credentials
⛔Having a rotation policy on paper but no automated enforcement mechanism

📈 Business Value

Automated key rotation or elimination reduces your attack surface by removing the most common cloud breach vector. Organizations using Workload Identity Federation eliminate 100% of key-related incidents.

⏱️ Effort Estimate

Manual

1-2 hours per service account for rotation; 2-5 days to migrate to Workload Identity

With EchelonGraph

EchelonGraph flags keys >90 days old across all service accounts in <60 seconds

🔗 Cross-Framework References

SOC2-CC6.1ISO27001-A.9.2.4

Automate CIS GCP 1.3 compliance

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