To see it in action, you first grab the token (valid for 6 hours in this example) and then use it:
The URL-encoded string refers to the AWS EC2 Instance Metadata Service (IMDSv2) token endpoint, which requires a PUT request to generate a session token for secure metadata retrieval. This command is legitimate for administrative tasks but may indicate an SSRF attack attempt if observed in unexpected logs. For more details, visit AWS documentation . EC2 Instance Meta Data Service version 2 (IMDSv2) - GitHub curl-url-http-3A-2F-2F169.254.169.254-2Flatest-2Fapi-2Ftoken
Then, use that token to access metadata, e.g.: To see it in action, you first grab
Use secret scanning tools (TruffleHog, Gitleaks) to find patterns like 169\.254\.169\.254 in repositories. EC2 Instance Meta Data Service version 2 (IMDSv2)
curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token
This is a request to the AWS EC2 instance metadata service (IMDSv2), which uses the IP address 169.254.169.254 — a link-local address reserved for instance metadata.
Here are a few ways to "piece" this together depending on your goal: 1. The Decoded Command