Performing AWS Account Enumeration With Scout Suite

Performing AWS Account Enumeration with ScoutSuite

Overview

ScoutSuite is an open-source multi-cloud security auditing tool developed by NCC Group that enables comprehensive security posture assessment of AWS environments. It queries AWS APIs to gather configuration data across all services, stores results locally, and generates interactive HTML reports highlighting high-risk areas. ScoutSuite is agentless and works by analyzing how cloud resources are configured, accessed, and monitored.

When to Use

• When conducting security assessments that involve performing aws account enumeration with scout suite
• When following incident response procedures for related security events
• When performing scheduled security testing or auditing activities
• When validating security controls through hands-on testing

Most Often Missed & How to Confirm

• Silent permission gaps look like a clean account: when the running principal lacks an action, ScoutSuite skips that check rather than failing loudly. Grep the run log/console for AccessDenied/UnauthorizedOperation before trusting a "good" result - missing iam:GenerateCredentialReport or s3:GetBucketPolicy produces false greens.
• Region scoping hides resources: passing --regions us-east-1 misses opt-in regions and resources elsewhere. Run a full scout aws (all regions) at least once; remember IAM/S3 are global and surface under any region.
• Services not deeply covered: ScoutSuite won't surface secrets in Lambda env vars, SSM Parameter Store, ECR image exposure, or Secrets Manager resource policies - pair it with cloudfox env-vars or manual aws ssm describe-parameters.
• S3 public-access nuance: a bucket can be flagged or cleared by ACL, bucket policy, or account-level Block Public Access independently. Corroborate any S3 finding with aws s3api get-public-access-block (account and bucket) before concluding.
• Single-account tunnel vision: in an Organization, scan each member account with an assumed role (--profile); one clean account says nothing about the others.
• How to confirm a real hit: open scoutsuite-results/scoutsuite_results.json and look for flagged_items > 0 with level: "danger" (e.g., iam-root-no-mfa, s3-bucket-world-listable), then reproduce it with the matching aws CLI call.
• Don't conclude the account is secure until you've run all regions and services with no AccessDenied in the log, validated danger findings via direct API calls, and scanned every account in the org.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.6+ installed
• AWS CLI configured with appropriate IAM credentials
• Read-only IAM permissions across target AWS services (SecurityAudit managed policy recommended)
• pip package manager for ScoutSuite installation
• Network access to AWS API endpoints

Installation and Setup

Install ScoutSuite

pip install scoutsuite

Verify installation

scout --version

Configure AWS credentials

aws configure
# Or use environment variables:
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<your-key>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<your-secret>
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1

Required IAM Policy

Attach the AWS managed policy SecurityAudit and ViewOnlyAccess to the IAM user or role running ScoutSuite. For comprehensive scanning, a custom policy may be needed:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "acm:Describe*",
        "acm:List*",
        "cloudformation:Describe*",
        "cloudformation:Get*",
        "cloudformation:List*",
        "cloudtrail:Describe*",
        "cloudtrail:Get*",
        "cloudtrail:List*",
        "cloudwatch:Describe*",
        "cloudwatch:Get*",
        "cloudwatch:List*",
        "config:Describe*",
        "config:Get*",
        "config:List*",
        "dynamodb:Describe*",
        "dynamodb:List*",
        "ec2:Describe*",
        "ec2:Get*",
        "elasticloadbalancing:Describe*",
        "iam:Generate*",
        "iam:Get*",
        "iam:List*",
        "iam:Simulate*",
        "kms:Describe*",
        "kms:Get*",
        "kms:List*",
        "lambda:Get*",
        "lambda:List*",
        "logs:Describe*",
        "logs:Get*",
        "rds:Describe*",
        "rds:List*",
        "redshift:Describe*",
        "route53:Get*",
        "route53:List*",
        "s3:Get*",
        "s3:List*",
        "ses:Get*",
        "ses:List*",
        "sns:Get*",
        "sns:List*",
        "sqs:Get*",
        "sqs:List*",
        "ssm:Describe*",
        "ssm:Get*",
        "ssm:List*"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Running ScoutSuite

Full AWS scan

scout aws

Scan specific services only

scout aws --services s3 iam ec2 rds

Scan specific regions

scout aws --regions us-east-1 us-west-2 eu-west-1

Use an assumed role for cross-account scanning

scout aws --profile target-account-profile

Exclude specific services from scan

scout aws --skip iam ec2

Specify output directory

scout aws --report-dir /tmp/scoutsuite-reports/

Report Analysis

ScoutSuite generates an interactive HTML report stored locally. The report includes:

1. Dashboard: Overview of findings by severity (danger, warning, good)
2. Service-level findings: Grouped by AWS service (IAM, S3, EC2, RDS, etc.)
3. Rule-based checks: Each finding maps to a security best practice rule
4. Resource inventory: Complete listing of enumerated resources

Key areas to review in the report

Interpreting Findings

Severity Levels

• Danger (Red): Critical security issues requiring immediate remediation (e.g., S3 buckets with public write access)
• Warning (Orange): Moderate risk findings that should be addressed (e.g., unused IAM access keys)
• Good (Green): Security best practices that are properly configured

Common High-Risk Findings

1. IAM root account without MFA: The AWS root account has no multi-factor authentication enabled
2. S3 bucket policy allows public access: Bucket policies with Principal set to "*"
3. Security group allows unrestricted SSH: Inbound rule allowing 0.0.0.0/0 on port 22
4. CloudTrail not enabled in all regions: Audit logging gaps allow unmonitored API activity
5. RDS instance publicly accessible: Database endpoints reachable from the internet

Remediation Workflow

1. Run ScoutSuite scan to establish baseline
2. Export findings and prioritize by severity
3. Create remediation tickets for danger and warning findings
4. Implement fixes (update security groups, enable encryption, restrict access)
5. Re-run ScoutSuite to verify remediation
6. Schedule regular scans (weekly or after infrastructure changes)

Integration with CI/CD

# Run ScoutSuite in CI/CD pipeline and fail on danger findings
scout aws --services s3 iam ec2 --no-browser --report-dir ./scout-report/

# Parse results programmatically
python -c "
import json
with open('./scout-report/scoutsuite-results/scoutsuite_results.json') as f:
    results = json.load(f)
    for service in results.get('services', {}):
        findings = results['services'][service].get('findings', {})
        for finding_id, finding in findings.items():
            if finding.get('flagged_items', 0) > 0 and finding.get('level') == 'danger':
                print(f'CRITICAL: {finding_id} - {finding.get(\"description\", \"\")}')
"

Multi-Cloud Capability

ScoutSuite supports multiple cloud providers using the same framework:

# Azure
scout azure --cli

# GCP
scout gcp --user-account

# AWS with specific profile
scout aws --profile production

References

• ScoutSuite GitHub Repository: https://github.com/nccgroup/ScoutSuite
• AWS Security Audit Checklist
• CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark
• AWS Well-Architected Security Pillar