MITRE ATT&CK Technique
T1535Unused/Unsupported Cloud Regions
- First Reported
- Sep 14, 2026
- Latest Reported
- Sep 14, 2026
Official Description
Adversaries may create cloud instances in unused geographic service regions in order to evade detection. Access is usually obtained through compromising accounts used to manage cloud infrastructure.
Cloud service providers often provide infrastructure throughout the world in order to improve performance, provide redundancy, and allow customers to meet compliance requirements. Oftentimes, a customer will only use a subset of the available regions and may not actively monitor other regions. If an adversary creates resources in an unused region, they may be able to operate undetected.
A variation on this behavior takes advantage of differences in functionality across cloud regions. An adversary could utilize regions which do not support advanced detection services in order to avoid detection of their activity.
An example of adversary use of unused AWS regions is to mine cryptocurrency through [Resource Hijacking](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1496), which can cost organizations substantial amounts of money over time depending on the processing power used.(Citation: CloudSploit - Unused AWS Regions)
Cloud service providers often provide infrastructure throughout the world in order to improve performance, provide redundancy, and allow customers to meet compliance requirements. Oftentimes, a customer will only use a subset of the available regions and may not actively monitor other regions. If an adversary creates resources in an unused region, they may be able to operate undetected.
A variation on this behavior takes advantage of differences in functionality across cloud regions. An adversary could utilize regions which do not support advanced detection services in order to avoid detection of their activity.
An example of adversary use of unused AWS regions is to mine cryptocurrency through [Resource Hijacking](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1496), which can cost organizations substantial amounts of money over time depending on the processing power used.(Citation: CloudSploit - Unused AWS Regions)
- Tactics
- Stealth
- Platforms
- IaaS
- MITRE Version
- 2.0
- Last Modified
- May 12, 2026
Reported Context (1)
- The appendix maps compute activity in a dormant cloud region to this technique. Researchers Map AWS Identity Behavior to Improve Cloud Threat Detection
MITRE ATT&CK (7)
Vendors (1)
Products (9)
Tools (2)
Note: Related entities, including threat actors, malware, CVEs, MITRE ATT&CK techniques, vendors, products, tools, countries, and industries, are shown when they appear in the same reporting. Their presence does not necessarily mean they were targeted, compromised, vulnerable, responsible for the activity, or directly involved in the incident.