Maintaining compliance in cloud environments is crucial for security and governance. AWS offers powerful tools like AWS Config and EventBridge to help you manage and automate compliance processes. This blog post will guide you through setting up automated compliance alerts using AWS Config and EventBridge, ensuring that your cloud infrastructure adheres to defined security policies and regulations.

Introduction to AWS EventBridge and AWS Config

AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. It continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations, allowing you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.

AWS EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events) is a serverless event bus service that easily connects your applications with data from various sources. It allows you to react in real-time to changes in your AWS environment by setting up rules that trigger based on events.

Objective: Setting Up Automated Compliance Alerts

This guide aims to set up a system that automatically notifies you whenever a compliance rule is breached. We will create an AWS Config rule, establish an SNS topic for notifications, configure an EventBridge rule to detect compliance changes, and test the entire setup to ensure it works correctly.

Step 1: Creating an AWS Config Rule

  1. Navigate to the AWS Config Console:
    • Log in to your AWS Management Console and open the AWS Config service.
  2. Create a New Rule:
    • Choose “Rules” from the left-hand menu and click “Add rule.”
    • Depending on your specific compliance needs, you can choose a managed rule provided by AWS or create a custom one.
    • Configure the rule by selecting the resources and specifying the conditions under which the rule should trigger.
  3. Define the Compliance Criteria:
    • Set the compliance criteria that AWS Config will evaluate. For instance, you could require that all EC2 instances have a specific tag or that S3 buckets be encrypted.
  4. Save the Rule:
    • After defining your rule, click “Save” to activate it.

Step 2: Establishing an SNS Topic for Notifications

  1. Open the SNS Console:
    • In the AWS Management Console, navigate to the Simple Notification Service (SNS).
  2. Create a Topic:
    • Click on “Create Topic” and choose a name for your topic, such as ComplianceAlerts.
    • Select the type of topic (standard or FIFO) based on your needs, though the standard is typically sufficient for compliance notifications.
  3. Configure Topic Settings:
    • Set up access policies if needed to restrict who can publish to or subscribe to this topic.
  4. Create Subscriptions:
    • After creating the topic, add subscriptions. You can subscribe to an email, SMS, or AWS service like Lambda or SQS. This ensures that the relevant stakeholders are immediately notified when compliance issues arise.

Step 3: Configuring an EventBridge Rule for Compliance Changes

  1. Navigate to EventBridge Console:
    • Go to the EventBridge console within AWS.
  2. Create a New Rule:
    • Click on “Create rule” and name it appropriately, like ComplianceChangeNotification.
  3. Define the Event Pattern:
    • In the event source section, select “AWS Config” as the event source.
    • Specify the event pattern to match ComplianceRuleEvaluationChange events. This pattern will trigger the rule whenever a compliance rule’s evaluation status changes.
  4. Set the Target:
    • For the target, select the SNS topic you created earlier. This ensures a message is sent to the SNS topic whenever the rule is triggered, notifying the subscribed endpoints.
  5. Save the Rule:
    • Review and save your EventBridge rule.

Step 4: Testing the Compliance Alert Setup

  1. Trigger a Compliance Event:
    • Manually modify a resource in your AWS environment to violate the compliance rule you set up in AWS Config. For example, turn off encryption on a test bucket if your rule requires S3 bucket encryption.
  2. Verify the Alert:
    • Check your email, SMS, or other configured endpoints to verify that you received a notification from the SNS topic.
  3. Review EventBridge Logs:
    • Return to the EventBridge console and check the logs to ensure the event was captured and processed correctly.

Conclusion: Streamlining Compliance Management with AWS Services

By integrating AWS Config with EventBridge and SNS, you can automate the process of monitoring and enforcing compliance across your AWS environment. This setup helps you avoid potential security risks and saves time by reducing manual oversight. Implementing automated compliance alerts is a proactive step toward maintaining a secure and compliant cloud infrastructure.

References

Automate AWS Config reporting for non-compliant resources that have been non-compliant for a period of time

Securing and automating compliance in the public sector with AWS