iam:PassRole + Glue Dev Endpoint Privilege Escalation

A Glue development endpoint runs as an IAM role and gives interactive (SSH/notebook) access. With iam:PassRole and glue:CreateDevEndpoint, an attacker creates a dev endpoint backed by a privileged role and then reads that role’s credentials from inside the endpoint.

Permissions an attacker needs

iam:PassRole
glue:CreateDevEndpoint
glue:GetDevEndpoint

How the escalation works

The attacker picks a privileged role they are allowed to pass.
They create a Glue dev endpoint, passing that role and their own SSH public key.
They connect to the endpoint and retrieve the role’s temporary credentials, then use them anywhere.

Example vulnerable policy

A policy like this grants the dangerous permission. Paste your own policy into the free AI-Powered IAM analyzer to see if you are exposed.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:PassRole",
        "glue:CreateDevEndpoint",
        "glue:GetDevEndpoint"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Example exploitation

For illustration only — run against accounts you own or are authorized to test.

aws glue create-dev-endpoint \
  --endpoint-name esc \
  --role-arn arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/privileged-role \
  --public-key "ssh-rsa AAAA..."

How to detect and prevent it

Scope iam:PassRole to specific roles and add iam:PassedToService = glue.amazonaws.com.
Restrict glue:CreateDevEndpoint to the roles/teams that genuinely need interactive Glue access.
Least-privilege Glue roles so an endpoint cannot reach beyond its data sources.

FAQ

Is this the same idea as PassRole + EC2 or Lambda?

Yes — it is the same pattern (pass a privileged role to a compute service you control), just via Glue. The fix is identical: scope PassRole and add a PassedToService condition.

Related escalation methods

Check your IAM policies for this — free

Shieldly's AI-Powered analyzer flags privilege-escalation paths, wildcards, and risky PassRole in seconds. No signup, no AWS credentials. Also ships as CLI, VS Code extension, GitHub Action, and CDK Guard.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. Shieldly is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon Web Services.