2.1. Monitoring and Alerting Solutions

Without proactive monitoring, security teams operate in reactive mode — discovering breaches only when customers complain or data appears on the dark web. Imagine running a bank where the vault alarm was optional and the security cameras only recorded during business hours. That's what an AWS environment without comprehensive monitoring looks like. The difference between detecting a breach in 5 minutes versus 5 months is often the difference between a contained incident and a catastrophic data loss. What fails when monitoring has gaps? Attackers exploit the blind spots — they operate in unmonitored Regions, use services you're not watching, and time their activity for periods when alerting is weakest.

This section covers how to design monitoring strategies that provide complete visibility, aggregate events centrally, detect anomalies through intelligent alerting, and automate continuous security assessments.

Scenario: Your organization operates across 12 AWS accounts and 4 Regions. You need a monitoring strategy that detects threats in any account and Region within minutes, without requiring manual log review.

Reflection Question: Why is centralized, automated monitoring across ALL accounts and Regions essential, and what do attackers exploit when monitoring coverage has gaps?