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.

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