AWS Security Incident Response Guide

What is the first phase in the AWS Security Incident Response lifecycle?

Preparation is the first phase in the AWS Security Incident Response lifecycle. During this phase, you establish and refine your incident response program and capabilities, ensuring that you have the correct tools and access in place, training your team on procedures, and familiarizing them with the AWS environment and services.

During an incident, which AWS service can help automate the response to security events?

AWS Security Hub can help automate the response to security events. It aggregates, organizes, and prioritizes your security alerts – called findings – from AWS services such as Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, and Amazon Macie, as well as from AWS Partner solutions. Security Hub can also trigger automated remediation actions using Amazon EventBridge and AWS Lambda.

What is the role of Amazon GuardDuty in detecting security incidents?

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior to protect AWS accounts, workloads, and data stored in Amazon S It uses machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence to identify and prioritize potential threats. GuardDuty alerts (findings) play a key role in detecting security incidents.

How can AWS CloudTrail help in the investigation of an AWS Security Incident?

AWS CloudTrail helps in the investigation of an AWS Security Incident by providing an event history of AWS API calls for your account. This includes actions taken through the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and other AWS services. This detailed log of events can help you determine the source and impact of a security incident.

What is the role of an incident response plan in AWS Security?

An incident response plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization should follow when responding to a security breach or cyber attack. In AWS Security, an incident response plan helps ensure a quick, effective, and orderly response to security incidents, which can minimize impact and help maintain trust and regulatory compliance.

Name an AWS-native tool that can be used to automatically remediate compliance violations or security issues detected.

AWS Config can be used to automatically remediate compliance violations or security issues detected. It evaluates the configuration settings of your AWS resources and, when integrated with AWS Systems Manager, can automatically resolve issues based on predefined rules.

How does the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance isolation process contribute to an effective AWS security incident response?

The Amazon EC2 instance isolation process contributes to an effective AWS security incident response by limiting the potential spread of an attack and protecting sensitive data. Isolating an instance can be useful for preventing an attacker from moving laterally within your environment and gives you a controlled environment to perform a forensic analysis without affecting your production environment.

Explain when and why you would engage AWS Support during a security incident response.

You would engage AWS Support during a security incident response when the incident is beyond your control and requires direct intervention or assistance from AWS, such as disabling access to compromised AWS resources, obtaining additional logs or visibility beyond your current access level, or when your own incident response tools indicate an AWS-specific issue. AWS Support can provide expertise and assistance to resolve the incident more efficiently.

When should you consider involving law enforcement in response to an AWS security incident?

You should consider involving law enforcement when the security incident involves illegal activities such as data theft, breach of customer privacy, or other cybercrimes. Involving law enforcement ensures that the incident is properly investigated and can help in the pursuit of legal action against the perpetrators if necessary.

What is the significance of conducting a “lessons learned” meeting after a security incident in AWS?

The significance of conducting a “lessons learned” meeting after a security incident in AWS is to review and evaluate the effectiveness of the incident response, identify what was done well and what could be improved, and implement changes to prevent future incidents. This collaborative review process helps to continuously improve security posture and incident response planning.

Describe how AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies can be employed to mitigate the risk of a security incident.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies can be employed to mitigate the risk of a security incident by enforcing the principle of least privilege, ensuring that IAM users, roles, and groups have only the permissions necessary to perform their tasks. Tightening these permissions reduces the attack surface and limits the potential impact if an incident does occur.

How can Amazon Inspector help maintain AWS resource compliance in relation to security standards and best practices?

Amazon Inspector can help maintain AWS resource compliance by automatically assessing applications for exposure, vulnerabilities, and deviations from best practices. After performing an assessment, Amazon Inspector produces a detailed list of security findings prioritized by level of severity. These findings can guide the remediation of potential security issues to ensure compliance with various security standards.