5.1.2. Amazon CloudWatch for Monitoring & Alarms

First Principle: Amazon CloudWatch provides a comprehensive and scalable monitoring service that collects operational data (metrics, logs, events) from AWS and on-premises resources, enabling real-time insights and automated security alerts.

Amazon CloudWatch is the primary monitoring and observability service for AWS. For security specialists, it's essential for understanding the security posture and operational status of their AWS environment.

Key Features of Amazon CloudWatch for Security Monitoring:

• Metrics: Time-series data points that represent a measurement of a particular aspect of a resource or application. Collects standard metrics from AWS services (e.g., IAM login attempts, S3 bucket size, NetworkIn/Out for suspicious traffic).
• Logs: Centralizes logs from various sources, such as AWS CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and application logs. Allows for real-time monitoring and powerful searching (CloudWatch Logs Insights).
• Alarms: Monitors metrics and automatically triggers actions when a defined threshold is breached. Notifies security teams of suspicious activity or critical security events.
  • Examples: Alarm on multiple failed IAM login attempts, or on a sudden increase in S3 PutObject operations from an unusual source.
  • Actions: Send Amazon SNS notifications, invoke AWS Lambda functions for automated remediation.
• Dashboards: Create customizable visualizations of security-relevant metrics and alarms for a centralized security operations center (SOC) view.

Scenario: You need to monitor your AWS account for suspicious login attempts and ensure that if there are multiple failed IAM login attempts from an unfamiliar IP address, your security team is immediately alerted.

Reflection Question: How does Amazon CloudWatch, by providing comprehensive collection of metrics and logs (e.g., from CloudTrail), and robust alarms, enable continuous visibility into your security posture and automate the detection of security events like suspicious login activity?