When an application improperly processes this string, an attacker is actively attempting to trick a cloud instance into querying its own internal metadata store. 2. The Mechanics of the Attack: What is SSRF?
The IP address 169.254.169.254 is a special IPv4 address reserved for link-local communication. In cloud environments like AWS (and similarly in Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure with different paths), this address hosts the . It is only accessible from within the running cloud instance itself; it cannot be reached from the public internet. 3. The Path to IAM Credentials When an application improperly processes this string, an
This URL is used to retrieve temporary security credentials for an AWS service or resource. When a request is made to this URL from within an EC2 instance, AWS returns a JSON response containing the security credentials for the IAM role attached to the instance. The IP address 169