Sigma rule: AWS VPC Flow Logs Deleted

Rule

Title

AWS VPC Flow Logs Deleted

Status

experimental

Level

high

Author

Ivan Saakov

Date

2025-10-19

File

rules/cloud/aws/cloudtrail/aws_cloudtrail_vpc_flow_logs_deleted.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects the deletion of one or more VPC Flow Logs in AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) through the DeleteFlowLogs API call.
Adversaries may delete flow logs to evade detection or remove evidence of network activity, hindering forensic investigations and visibility into malicious operations.

Log source

product

aws

service

cloudtrail

Detection

selection_event_name:
    eventName: 'DeleteFlowLogs'
selection_status_success:
    errorCode: 'Success'
selection_status_null:
    errorCode: null
condition: selection_event_name and 1 of selection_status_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• During maintenance operations or testing, authorized administrators may delete VPC Flow Logs as part of routine network management or cleanup activities.

Tags

• attack.stealth

References

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/APIReference/API_DeleteFlowLogs.html
• https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/ec2/delete-flow-logs.html
• https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/security/prebuilt-rules/rules/integrations/aws/defense_evasion_ec2_flow_log_deletion

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/cloud/aws/cloudtrail/aws_cloudtrail_vpc_flow_logs_deleted.yml