Amazon GuardDuty is a machine studying (ML)-based safety monitoring and clever menace detection service that analyzes and processes numerous AWS knowledge sources, repeatedly screens your AWS accounts and workloads for malicious exercise, and delivers detailed safety findings for visibility and remediation.

I really like the function of GuardDuty Runtime Monitoring that analyzes working system (OS)-level, community, and file occasions to detect potential runtime threats for particular AWS workloads in your atmosphere. I first launched the final availability of this function for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) assets in March 2023. Seb wrote in regards to the growth of the Runtime Monitoring function to offer menace detection for Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and AWS Fargate in addition to the preview for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) workloads in Nov 2023.

As we speak, we’re asserting the final availability of Amazon GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring to broaden menace detection protection for EC2 cases at runtime and complement the anomaly detection that GuardDuty already gives by repeatedly monitoring VPC Circulate Logs, DNS question logs, and AWS CloudTrail administration occasions. You now have visibility into on-host, OS-level actions and container-level context into detected threats.

With GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring, you may determine and reply to potential threats which may goal the compute assets inside your EC2 workloads. Threats to EC2 workloads usually contain distant code execution that results in the obtain and execution of malware. This might embody cases or self-managed containers in your AWS atmosphere which can be connecting to IP addresses related to cryptocurrency-related exercise or to malware command-and-control associated IP addresses.

GuardDuty Runtime Monitoring gives visibility into suspicious instructions that contain malicious file downloads and execution throughout every step, which will help you uncover threats throughout preliminary compromise and earlier than they change into business-impacting occasions. You may as well centrally allow runtime menace detection protection for accounts and workloads throughout the group utilizing AWS Organizations to simplify your safety protection.

Configure EC2 Runtime Monitoring in GuardDuty
With just a few clicks, you may allow GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring within the GuardDuty console. On your first use, you want to allow Runtime Monitoring.

Any clients which can be new to the EC2 Runtime Monitoring function can attempt it for free for 30 days and acquire entry to all options and detection findings. The GuardDuty console exhibits what number of days are left within the free trial.

Now, you may arrange the GuardDuty safety agent for the person EC2 cases for which you wish to monitor the runtime conduct. You may select to deploy the GuardDuty safety agent both routinely or manually. At GA, you may allow Automated agent configuration, which is a most popular possibility for many clients because it permits GuardDuty to handle the safety agent on their behalf.

The agent can be deployed on EC2 cases with AWS Techniques Supervisor and makes use of an Amazon Digital Personal Cloud (Amazon VPC) endpoint to obtain the runtime occasions related together with your useful resource. If you wish to handle the GuardDuty safety agent manually, go to Managing the safety agent Amazon EC2 occasion manually within the AWS documentation. In multiple-account environments, delegated GuardDuty administrator accounts handle their member accounts utilizing AWS Organizations. For extra data, go to Managing a number of accounts within the AWS documentation.

Once you allow EC2 Runtime Monitoring, you could find the lined EC2 cases checklist, account ID, and protection standing, and whether or not the agent is ready to obtain runtime occasions from the corresponding useful resource within the EC2 occasion runtime protection tab.

Even when the protection standing is Unhealthy, that means it’s not at the moment in a position to obtain runtime findings, you continue to have protection in depth on your EC2 occasion. GuardDuty continues to offer menace detection to the EC2 occasion by monitoring CloudTrail, VPC circulation, and DNS logs related to it.

Try GuardDuty EC2 Runtime safety findings
When GuardDuty detects a possible menace and generates safety findings, you may view the main points of the wholesome data.

Select Findings within the left pane if you wish to discover safety findings particular to Amazon EC2 assets. You need to use the filter bar to filter the findings desk by particular standards, comparable to a Useful resource sort of Occasion. The severity and particulars of the findings differ based mostly on the useful resource position, which signifies whether or not the EC2 useful resource was the goal of suspicious exercise or the actor performing the exercise.

With as we speak’s launch, we assist over 30 runtime safety findings for EC2 cases, comparable to detecting abused domains, backdoors, cryptocurrency-related exercise, and unauthorized communications. For the complete checklist, go to Runtime Monitoring discovering varieties within the AWS documentation.

Resolve your EC2 safety findings
Select every EC2 safety discovering to know extra particulars. Yow will discover all the knowledge related to the discovering and look at the useful resource in query to find out whether it is behaving in an anticipated method.

If the exercise is allowed, you should utilize suppression guidelines or trusted IP lists to stop false constructive notifications for that useful resource. If the exercise is surprising, the safety greatest follow is to imagine the occasion has been compromised and take the actions detailed in Remediating a probably compromised Amazon EC2 occasion within the AWS documentation.

You may combine GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring with different AWS safety providers, comparable to AWS Safety Hub or Amazon Detective. Or you should utilize Amazon EventBridge, permitting you to make use of integrations with safety occasion administration or workflow methods, comparable to Splunk, Jira, and ServiceNow, or set off automated and semi-automated responses comparable to isolating a workload for investigation.

Once you select Examine with Detective, you could find Detective-created visualizations for AWS assets to rapidly and simply examine safety points. To be taught extra, go to Integration with Amazon Detective within the AWS documentation.

Issues to know
GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring assist is now accessible for EC2 cases working Amazon Linux 2 or Amazon Linux 2023. You’ve got the choice to configure most CPU and reminiscence limits for the agent. To be taught extra and for future updates, go to Conditions for Amazon EC2 occasion assist within the AWS documentation.

To estimate the day by day common utilization prices for GuardDuty, select Utilization within the left pane. Throughout the 30-day free trial interval, you may estimate what your prices can be after the trial interval. On the finish of the trial interval, we cost you per vCPU hours tracked month-to-month for the monitoring brokers. To be taught extra, go to the Amazon GuardDuty pricing web page.

Enabling EC2 Runtime Monitoring additionally permits for a cost-saving alternative in your GuardDuty value. When the function is enabled, you received’t be charged for GuardDuty foundational safety VPC Circulate Logs sourced from the EC2 cases working the safety agent. This is because of comparable, however extra contextual, community knowledge accessible from the safety agent. Moreover, GuardDuty would nonetheless course of VPC Circulate Logs and generate related findings so you’ll proceed to get network-level safety protection even when the agent experiences downtime.

Now accessible
Amazon GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring is now accessible in all AWS Areas the place GuardDuty is out there, excluding AWS GovCloud (US) Areas and AWS China Areas. For a full checklist of Areas the place EC2 Runtime Monitoring is out there, go to Area-specific function availability.

Give GuardDuty EC2 Runtime Monitoring a attempt within the GuardDuty console. For extra data, go to the Amazon GuardDuty Person Information and ship suggestions to AWS re:Publish for Amazon GuardDuty or by means of your normal AWS assist contacts.

— Channy