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PASSEDcloud / aws_s3_bucket_policy_lockout
AWS S3 Bucket Policy Lockout — Data Inaccessible
A misconfigured S3 bucket policy denies all access including the root account. The bucket contains 15TB of production assets (user uploads, documents, media). All applications that read from or write to the bucket receive AccessDenied errors. Even the AWS console shows access denied.
Pattern
AWS_CLOUD
Severity
CRITICAL
Confidence
95%
Remediation
Remote Hands
Test Results
| Metric | Expected | Actual | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pattern Recognition | AWS_CLOUD | AWS_CLOUD | |
| Severity Assessment | CRITICAL | CRITICAL | |
| Incident Correlation | Yes | 28 linked | |
| Cascade Escalation | Yes | Yes | |
| Remediation | — | Remote Hands — Corax contacts on-site support via call, email, or API |
Scenario Conditions
AWS S3 bucket 'prod-assets-us-east-1'. Bucket policy with explicit Deny on all principals (misconfigured by automation script). 15TB of production data. 8 microservices reading/writing to the bucket. No bucket versioning (cannot roll back policy via versioned policy object).
Injected Error Messages (3)
AWS S3 bucket access denied — AccessDenied on all operations for s3 bucket 'prod-assets-us-east-1', bucket policy contains explicit Deny for Principal '*' on all S3 actions, even root account and IAM admin locked out, 15TB of production assets inaccessible, CloudTrail showing policy change by automation role 'deploy-bot' at 03:14 UTC, AWS support case required for recovery
Media service cannot read or write assets — S3 GetObject returning AccessDenied for all keys, user profile images returning broken, file upload endpoint returning errors, 8 microservices affected by S3 lockout, media CDN cache expiring with no origin access, customer-facing impact on all pages with images
Document service data inaccessible — all document download requests failing with AccessDenied from S3, PDF generation service queuing 12,000 pending jobs, e-signature workflow halted, compliance documents for 3 active audits unreachable, estimated revenue impact: $45K/hour
Neural Engine Root Cause Analysis
The S3 bucket 'prod-assets-us-east-1' is inaccessible due to an overly restrictive bucket policy that was automatically deployed by the 'deploy-bot' automation role at 03:14 UTC. The policy contains an explicit Deny statement for Principal '*' on all S3 actions, which overrides any Allow permissions and has locked out even the root account and IAM administrators. This is a classic misconfiguration where an automated deployment applied a bucket policy that denies access to all principals, making the 15TB of production assets completely inaccessible and causing cascading failures across 12 related services.
Remediation Plan
1. Immediately open AWS support case requesting emergency bucket policy reset for 'prod-assets-us-east-1' bucket (mention root account lockout). 2. While waiting for AWS support, review the deploy-bot automation code/templates that were deployed at 03:14 UTC to identify the faulty bucket policy configuration. 3. Once AWS support restores access, immediately apply a corrected bucket policy that maintains security while allowing legitimate access. 4. Implement bucket policy validation in the CI/CD pipeline to prevent future lockouts. 5. Add monitoring alerts for bucket policy changes. 6. Consider implementing bucket policy MFA delete protection for critical production buckets.
Tested: 2026-03-30Monitors: 3 | Incidents: 3Test ID: cmncju9tg04qdobqexycbdzga