AWS Incident Response Playbooks
A structured framework for incident response in AWS environments, leveraging native AWS services for log collection, threat detection, and incident management.
| Category | Incident Response & Forensics |
|---|---|
| Community Stars | 942 |
| Last Commit | 1 month ago |
| Last page update | 19 days ago |
| Pricing Details | Free to use under the Open Source license |
| Target Audience | AWS security teams, incident response teams, and organizations using AWS services. |
The AWS Incident Response Playbooks, hosted on GitHub, address a critical operational and security challenge in AWS environments: the lack of standardized and tailored incident response procedures. Here’s a technical overview of these playbooks:
The primary challenge these playbooks tackle is the need for customized, actionable incident response strategies that align with the specific risks, tools, and workflows of an organization using AWS services. Without such playbooks, organizations may struggle to respond effectively to security incidents, leading to prolonged downtime and increased risk exposure.
These playbooks are designed around the NIST Computer Security Incident Handling Guide (Special Publication 800-61 Revision 2), ensuring a structured approach to incident response. The architecture involves several key components:
- Evidence Gathering: Utilizing AWS services like CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and GuardDuty to collect and analyze logs and alerts.
- Incident Containment and Eradication: Steps to isolate and remove the threat, often involving IAM credential management and network segmentation.
- Recovery: Procedures for restoring systems and services to a secure state.
- Post-Incident Activities: Conducting post-mortem analyses and feedback processes to improve future responses.
The playbooks emphasize the importance of customization and testing. Organizations must adapt these templates to their specific needs, technologies, and processes. This includes simulating incidents (e.g., using Game Days) to ensure responders are familiar with the actions required. Additionally, deploying these playbooks may incur costs for services used during preparation and response, which can be monitored using AWS Cost Explorer.
The playbooks are written in markdown for ease of editing and integration into various systems. They include sample scenarios such as IAM credential exposure, EC2 crypto mining, and denial of service attacks. The workshop environment, built using AWS CDK or CloudFormation, integrates tools like Amazon Athena for analytical capabilities on CloudTrail, VPC Flow logs, and Route53 DNS logs. This setup enables comprehensive threat detection and incident response practices.
In summary, these playbooks provide a structured framework for incident response in AWS environments, leveraging native AWS services for log collection, threat detection, and incident management, while emphasizing the need for customization and regular testing to ensure effectiveness.