Tutorial / Cram Notes
When preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional exam, one must understand the various remediation techniques available within AWS to ensure systems adhere to compliance and maintain a strong security posture. Remediation involves identifying and correcting security issues, configuration errors, or non-compliance with best practices.
1. AWS Config Rules and Remediation Actions
AWS Config helps you assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. Config Rules enables you to create rules that automatically check the configuration of AWS resources recorded by AWS Config.
Examples of AWS Config Rules include:
- Ensuring that Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes are attached to EC2 instances
- Verifying that Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled for all IAM users
- Checking if encryption is enabled on S3 buckets
When a resource is non-compliant, you can define remediation actions to automatically address the issue.
How to Create an AWS Config Rule with a Remediation Action:
- Go to the AWS Config console and select ‘Rules’.
- Click on ‘Add rule’ and choose a rule template or create a custom rule.
- Configure the rule with the appropriate triggers and parameters.
- Under ‘Remediation action’, choose an AWS Systems Manager (SSM) document that implements the desired remediation action.
- Define parameters for the SSM document if necessary.
- Save the rule.
When Config detects a non-compliant resource, it can trigger the SSM document to remediate the issue automatically.
2. AWS Security Hub Automated Responses
AWS Security Hub gives you a comprehensive view of your high-priority security alerts and compliance status across AWS accounts. It can perform automated remediation using custom actions.
Example of Security Hub Automated Response:
- Disabling public access to an S3 bucket in response to a finding that the bucket is publicly accessible.
Steps to Set Up an Automated Response in Security Hub:
- Open the AWS Security Hub console.
- Navigate to ‘Security automation’ and select the ‘Custom actions’ tab.
- Create a custom action by giving it a name and an identifier (ARN).
- Use Amazon CloudWatch Events (EventBridge) to trigger a Lambda function based on the custom action.
3. AWS Systems Manager Automation
AWS Systems Manager Automation allows you to safely automate common and repetitive IT operations and management tasks. You can create Automation documents or use pre-defined documents provided by AWS.
Examples of Automation documents are:
- Patching compliance enforcement
- Managing instance start and stop times
- Remediation of non-compliant resources
Sample SSM Automation Document for Stopping a Non-Compliant EC2 Instance:
description: ‘Stop non-compliant EC2 instances’
schemaVersion: ‘0.3’
parameters:
InstanceId:
type: ‘String’
description: ‘(Required) The ID of the EC2 instance to stop.’
mainSteps:
– name: stopInstance
action: ‘aws:changeInstanceState’
inputs:
InstanceIds:
– ‘{{ InstanceId }}’
DesiredState: ‘stopped’
4. IAM Policies and Permission Boundaries
IAM policies are integral to defining permissions and enforcing remediation for non-compliant IAM configurations.
Examples of IAM policy enforcement include:
- Limiting IAM permissions to minimum required levels
- Implementing permission boundaries to restrict IAM role escalation
- Enforcing IAM best practices, such as password rotation policies
AWS Policy for Enforcing Password Rotation:
{
“Version”: “2012-10-17”,
“Statement”: [
{
“Sid”: “EnforcePasswordExpiration”,
“Effect”: “Deny”,
“Action”: “iam:ChangePassword”,
“Resource”: “*”,
“Condition”: {“NumericLessThan”: {“passwordLastUsed”: “90”}}
}
]
}
Comparison Table of Remediation Techniques
| Remediation Technique | Description | Use Cases | Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Config Rules and Remediation Actions | Automatically manages configuration changes and compliance | Ensuring encryption, checking unattached volumes | Continual compliance and configuration management |
| AWS Security Hub Automated Responses | Centralized view and response against security findings | Disabling public access, alerting for unusual activities | Centralized security and compliance monitoring |
| AWS Systems Manager Automation | Runbooks for automated management tasks | Patch management, stopping/starting instances | Simplify administrative tasks, improve operational efficiency |
| IAM Policies and Permission Boundaries | Define access rules and limits for IAM entities | Restricting role permissions, enforcing password policies | Enhance security posture, prevent privilege escalation |
In summary, employing the right remediation technique within AWS is critical to ensuring that resources are secure, compliant, and well-managed. Whether using AWS Config Rules, Security Hub, Systems Manager Automation, or IAM policy enforcement, a Solutions Architect should integrate these practices to maintain a robust and secure AWS environment, which is a key component of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) certification exam.
Practice Test with Explanation
Question: Remediation techniques in AWS can be automated using AWS Config Rules and AWS Systems Manager.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: AWS Config Rules can evaluate the configuration settings of your AWS resources, and AWS Systems Manager can be used to automate and orchestrate responses to those evaluations for remediation purposes.
Question: Which of the following services can automatically remediate non-compliant resources in AWS?
- AWS Config
- Amazon CloudWatch
- AWS Lambda
- AWS Systems Manager
- Amazon Inspector
Answer: AWS Config, AWS Lambda, AWS Systems Manager
Explanation: AWS Config can be used to identify non-compliance, AWS Lambda can execute the remediation code, and AWS Systems Manager can be used for orchestrating the remediation process. Amazon CloudWatch is mainly for monitoring, and Amazon Inspector is for security assessments and does not by itself perform remediation.
Question: Manual intervention is required for all types of remediation in AWS.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: While manual interventions can be required, AWS also supports automated remediation through various services like AWS Config, AWS Systems Manager, and AWS Lambda.
Question: Which AWS service is NOT typically involved in the remediation process?
- Amazon Route 53
- AWS Systems Manager
- AWS Lambda
- AWS Config
Answer: Amazon Route 53
Explanation: Amazon Route 53 is a scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS) web service, which is not specifically involved in the remediation process of AWS resources configuration like AWS Systems Manager, AWS Lambda, or AWS Config.
Question: When you define an AWS Config rule, you must specify the remediation action to be taken if the rule is violated.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: While you can specify an automatic remediation action when you define an AWS Config rule, it is not a requirement. You can choose to have manual remediation or no remediation action predefined.
Question: AWS Config can only assess the compliance of your AWS resource configurations upon configuration changes.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: AWS Config can assess compliance both when resources change (change-triggered) and at regular intervals (time-triggered), depending on how the rules are configured.
Question: Automatic remediation in AWS requires the use of which service to execute remediation scripts in response to a rule violation?
- AWS CodePipeline
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon EC2
- Amazon S3
Answer: AWS Lambda
Explanation: AWS Lambda can be used to execute remediation scripts automatically when an AWS Config rule violation is detected.
Question: Which AWS service utilizes a combination of predefined and customer-defined rules to evaluate the configuration of your AWS environment?
- AWS Trusted Advisor
- AWS Control Tower
- AWS Security Hub
- AWS Config
Answer: AWS Config
Explanation: AWS Config uses both predefined rules (AWS managed rules) and customer-defined rules (custom rules) to evaluate your AWS resource configurations.
Question: How does AWS Systems Manager help with compliance enforcement?
- By encrypting data at rest
- By monitoring network traffic
- By automating security best practices
- By executing Automation documents for remediation tasks
Answer: By executing Automation documents for remediation tasks
Explanation: AWS Systems Manager can execute Automation documents to automate various administrative tasks, including compliance enforcement and remediation.
Question: The AWS Config rule “ec2-volume-inuse-check” checks for EC2 volumes that are not attached to instances and can automatically delete them after approval.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: While AWS Config rules can check for unused resources, they do not automatically delete resources without implementing additional custom remediation actions.
Question: Is AWS CloudFormation used for automated remediation of resource configurations?
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: AWS CloudFormation is a service that helps you model and set up your AWS resources so that you can spend less time managing those resources and more time focusing on your applications. It is not typically used for the automated remediation of existing resource configurations but could be part of an automation strategy for consistent environment setup and updates.
Interview Questions
What AWS service can you use to automate remediation of non-compliant resources to adhere to your company’s compliance standards?
AWS Config is the service that can be used to monitor and remediate non-compliant resources automatically. With AWS Config rules, you can assess whether your resource configurations comply with your policies, and you can set up auto-remediation to correct violations.
How can you remediate security group violations, such as an open SSH port to the public, in an AWS environment?
By using AWS Config to detect the violation and AWS Lambda for automated remediation. Create an AWS Config rule to detect the security group issue, then associate a remediation action that triggers a Lambda function to modify the security group’s rules to comply with the required standards.
Describe the role of AWS CloudFormation in the remediation of resources.
AWS CloudFormation allows you to model and provision AWS resources in a predictable and repeatable way. It can be used for remediation by updating stacks and ensuring that resources conform to an established template, which reflects the organization’s security and configuration policies.
What would be your approach in AWS to automatically remediate instances that are not using approved AMIs?
AWS Systems Manager Automation can be used to automatically remediate such instances. You can create an Automation document that specifies actions like stopping non-compliant instances or replacing them with instances launched from approved AMIs.
Can you describe how to trigger remediation actions in response to Amazon GuardDuty findings?
Remediation actions can be triggered by using Amazon CloudWatch Events or Amazon EventBridge to detect GuardDuty findings, then invoking AWS Lambda functions or Systems Manager Automation documents to take the appropriate remediation actions, such as isolating compromised instances or updating security groups.
Discuss the integration of AWS Step Functions with remediation workflows.
AWS Step Functions can coordinate remediation workflows involving multiple AWS services. It allows the architect to design and implement complex, multi-step remediation processes that can include error handling, conditional logic, and parallel execution, thus providing more resilient and comprehensive automated remediation solutions.
How would you use Amazon SNS in the context of remediation?
Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) can be integrated with AWS checks and alerts to notify the operations team of issues that require manual intervention or to trigger automated remediation workflows connected via Lambda or other endpoints.
Explain how you can use Tag Policies to ensure tagging compliance and automate remediation of non-compliant tags.
Tag Policies can be established in AWS Organizations to enforce tagging conventions across multiple accounts. Non-compliance can be detected via AWS Config, which can also invoke remediation actions either through Lambda functions or Systems Manager to correct the tags on resources.
What would you recommend for the continuous scanning and remediation of IAM policies that violate the principle of least privilege?
Continuous scanning can be achieved through AWS Access Analyzer, which reviews IAM policies to identify policies that grant broad access. Remediation of such policies would involve revising the policies manually or through an automated process to align with the principle of least privilege.
How can AWS Backup help in remediating data loss scenarios?
AWS Backup provides centralized backup across AWS services. In the event of data loss, it allows for the automated or manual restoration of backups to remediate the loss. AWS Backup policies can be configured to comply with data protection regulations and can be applied across accounts in AWS Organizations for consistent remediation of data loss incidents.
Great post! Learned a lot about remediation techniques for the SAP-C02 exam.
This is very helpful, thank you!
Can someone explain the difference between automatic and manual remediation techniques in AWS architecture?
The breakdown of AWS services for remediation was excellent!
Appreciate the detailed explanation. This will help a lot in preparing for the SAP-C02 exam.
How effective are AWS Config rules for compliance management in remediation?
Nicely organized post. Thanks.
What are the best practices for implementing remediation techniques in a multi-account AWS environment?