T1578.002

Official Description

An adversary may create a new instance or virtual machine (VM) within the compute service of a cloud account to evade defenses. Creating a new instance may allow an adversary to bypass firewall rules and permissions that exist on instances currently residing within an account. An adversary may [Create Snapshot](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1578/001) of one or more volumes in an account, create a new instance, mount the snapshots, and then apply a less restrictive security policy to collect [Data from Local System](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1005) or for [Remote Data Staging](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1074/002).(Citation: Mandiant M-Trends 2020)

Creating a new instance may also allow an adversary to carry out malicious activity within an environment without affecting the execution of current running instances.

Tactics: Defense Impairment
Platforms: IaaS
Parent Technique: T1578 · Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure
MITRE Version: 2.0
Last Modified: May 12, 2026

View on MITRE ATT&CK ↗

Reported Context (1)

The appendix maps a cloud instance creation attempt 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.