is a link-local address used by the AWS Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) to provide temporary IAM credentials to EC2 instances. Attackers exploit this endpoint via Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) to steal sensitive security credentials, particularly when using the legacy, unprotected IMDSv1. To mitigate these risks, organizations should enforce IMDSv2, which requires session-oriented authentication to secure instance metadata. Read the full guide on defending against this threat at AWS Retrieving Security Credentials from Instance Metadata
By fetching data from this service, an application running on the instance can discover its: Instance ID and Type Public and Private IP addresses Security group names The "Security Credentials" Endpoint is a link-local address used by the AWS
http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta data/iam/security credentials/ Read the full guide on defending against this
This URL seems to be related to Amazon Web Services (AWS), specifically an EC2 instance's metadata service. The path /latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/ is commonly used to retrieve temporary security credentials for an IAM role attached to an EC2 instance. What it means : This part of the
Specifically, it attempts to retrieve (temporary access keys) associated with a specific IAM role assigned to an EC2 instance. What it means
: This part of the URL refers to the metadata service endpoint. The metadata service provides information about the instance, such as its ID, type, and IP address.
When decoded, it translates to: