T1578.002: Create Cloud Instance
Essential information
- MITRE technique ID
T1578.002- Confidence
- 100/100
- Revoked
- No
- Published
- 16/12/2025 19:38
- Modified
- 27/03/2026 01:12
- Author / Source
- The MITRE Corporation
Platforms
IaaS
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.
Kill chain phases
| Kill chain | Phase |
|---|---|
| mitre-attack | defense-evasion |
Marking (TLP)
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