Published on February 28, 2026
Last Update!
Published on December 12, 2024
Last Update!
You must first get a token, usually by setting a time-to-live ( TTL ) header, which determines how long the token is valid.
When you see the string curl-url-http-3A-2F-2F169.254.169.254-2Flatest-2Fapi-2Ftoken (which is a URL-encoded version of the path), it refers to this specific two-step process. Step 1: Generate the Token curl-url-http-3A-2F-2F169.254.169.254-2Flatest-2Fapi-2Ftoken
The command curl -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 21600" -X PUT "http://169.254.169" You must first get a token, usually by
…then an attacker who finds it can and attempt to run it against any target server they control — or worse, if they have network access to your cloud environment, they can run it against your instance metadata service. You must first get a token