Gaining access to inherited AWS EC2 instances

wiringbits.net

9 pointsAlexITC5 comments

Hi everybody,

As a consultant, I have got to work many times with non-technical customers who don't have access to the servers running their applications.

I ended up writing small notes on how I have been gaining access to EC2 instances.

In short, AWS allows running scripts after the instance boots, which can be leveraged to introduce a "backdoor", like authorizing a new ssh key.

Systems Manager Session Manager / EC2 Instance Connect also make this a bit easier, and don't require a reboot... The instance may not have the needed bits baked in depending upon age, of course.

> EC2 Instance Connect

This is super helpful, unfortunately, it does not always work, specially on old instances like the ones I have been taking over.

I’ve usually done this by attaching the volume or a snapshot of the volume to a temporary instance and going directly to the filesystem to get whatever I need off it.

That's another nice alternative, I don't remember the exact reasons on why I ended up with the backdoor approach.

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