EC2 IMDSv2 Not Required
The older metadata service can be reached through a server-side request forgery bug in the application, which is how instance credentials are most commonly stolen.
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AWS
Found, explained, handed over.
Where the estate departs from your policies, frameworks and tagging rules.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across AWS, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Require IMDSv2 on EC2 instance.
Fix
The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.
- Applies to
- EC2 Instances on AWS
- The fix, by hand
- Inventory anything on the instance that reads instance metadata: app code, EC2 user data, third-party agents.
- Confirm all readers use a recent AWS SDK (IMDSv2 token-aware) or update them.
- For containerised workloads, raise the metadata hop limit to 2: aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options --instance-id ‹id› --http-put-response-hop-limit 2.
- Set IMDSv2 to required: aws ec2 modify-instance-metadata-options --instance-id ‹id› --http-tokens required.
- Watch CloudWatch / app logs for 24h; IMDSv1 401s show up loudly when something is still on the old path.
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- Category
- Compliance. Configuration drift from best practice: public access, missing MFA, unencrypted storage, deprecated runtimes.
- Where it appears
- The Compliance tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-152- Full reference
Related checks
See the compliance findings in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
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Figures published on zop.dev.