Issue #267

Monday · June 29, 2026

🥖 Palate Cleanser

A while back Eduard Agavriloae got in touch about an idea he's been kicking around for a long time. He loves how PortSwigger do their yearly top 10 web hacking techniques and wanted cloud security to have something similar. Eduard is very handsome, so I had little choice but to agree.

This week we're launching the AWS Security Digest Top 10, an annual community-driven list of the year's most important AWS security research. Nominations are open through September 30, so go put forward the research that actually taught you something this year, your own work included.

Unrelated but fun, AWS shipped Lambda MicroVMs, a new serverless primitive that gives you VM-level isolation with near-instant launch and can suspend and resume for up to eight hours, aimed at people running untrusted or AI-generated code like coding assistants and vulnerability scanners. Naturally, someone has already turned it into a party trick: whim spins up a throwaway root shell inside one and lets it vanish a couple of seconds later. Aidan Steele's day-one notes are the best map of the security-relevant edges, from the first-class shell API down to web identity tokens that carry no MicroVM identity yet.

📋 Chef's selections

MCP Auto-Execution: From Git Clone to Cloud Compromise in Amazon Q VS Code Extension

by Maor Dokhanian

Open the wrong repo in VS Code and Amazon Q would read a .amazonq/mcp.json file from its root and auto-start every MCP server listed inside with no approval prompt. Those processes inherited your shell environment, so a booby-trapped repo could quietly run aws sts get-caller-identity and curl your access key and session token to an attacker, just from opening the folder. It got patched... the patch being the radical step of asking first.

Behind the console: An AiTM phishing kit harvesting AWS console credentials and beyond

by Christophe Tafani-Dereeper

Three look-alike AWS sign-in domains registered between June 16 and 18 ran an adversary-in-the-middle proxy in front of the real console, and the kit's code looks built to forward a victim's password and live MFA code to the operator's /api/auth endpoint for real-time replay into the account. It appears to be the same kit NVISO documented as PoisonSeeds in 2025, which hit the likes of SendGrid and Okta, now redressed for AWS. The best part for defenders is the DNS IOCs plus a CloudTrail ConsoleLogin and impossible-travel hunt you can run today.

🥗 AWS security blogs

🍛 Reddit threads on r/aws


🤖 Dessert

Every machine-tracked change this week. Nobody else assembles this.

🧁 IAM permission changes

🍪 API changes

🍹 IAM managed policy changes

☕ CloudFormation resource changes

🎮 Amazon Linux vulnerabilities

📺 AWS security bulletins

🚬 Security documentation changes

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