AWS IAM Audit Logs & Monitoring

Introduction

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) allows you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. One critical aspect of IAM is auditing and monitoring user activities, which helps ensure compliance with security best practices.

Key Concepts

• Audit Logs: Records of all API calls made by users and services.
• CloudTrail: A service that enables governance, compliance, and operational and risk auditing of your AWS account.
• Monitoring: The process of observing and analyzing user activities and resource access.

Understanding Audit Logs

AWS CloudTrail captures all API calls made in your AWS account. This includes calls from the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and other AWS services. Logs can be stored in S3 buckets for long-term retention and analysis.

aws cloudtrail create-trail --name MyTrail --s3-bucket-name my-cloudtrail-bucket
aws cloudtrail start-logging --name MyTrail
            

Monitoring IAM Activities

Monitoring IAM activities involves setting up alerts and regularly reviewing logs. AWS CloudWatch can be used to set alarms based on specific log events.

{
  "AlarmName": "UnauthorizedAccessAlarm",
  "MetricName": "UnauthorizedAPICalls",
  "Namespace": "AWS/CloudTrail",
  "Statistic": "Sum",
  "Period": 300,
  "EvaluationPeriods": 1,
  "Threshold": 1,
  "ComparisonOperator": "GreaterThanThreshold",
  "AlarmActions": ["arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:123456789012:NotifyMe"]
}
            

Best Practices

• Enable CloudTrail in all regions.
• Store CloudTrail logs in a secure S3 bucket with proper permissions.
• Regularly review IAM policies and permissions.
• Set up alerts for unusual or unauthorized activities.

FAQ