Information
Real-time monitoring of API calls can be achieved by directing CloudTrail Logs to CloudWatch Logs and establishing corresponding metric filters and alarms. Routing tables are used to route network traffic between subnets and to network gateways. It is recommended that a metric filter and alarm be established for changes to route tables.
Rationale:
Monitoring changes to route tables will help ensure that all VPC traffic flows through an expected path.
Solution
Perform the following to setup the metric filter, alarm, SNS topic, and subscription:
Create a metric filter based on filter pattern provided which checks for route table changes and the <cloudtrail_log_group_name> taken from audit step 1.
aws logs put-metric-filter --log-group-name <cloudtrail_log_group_name> --filter-name '<route_table_changes_metric>' --metric-transformations metricName= '<route_table_changes_metric>' ,metricNamespace='CISBenchmark',metricValue=1 --filter-pattern '{ ($.eventName = CreateRoute) || ($.eventName = CreateRouteTable) || ($.eventName = ReplaceRoute) || ($.eventName = ReplaceRouteTableAssociation) || ($.eventName = DeleteRouteTable) || ($.eventName = DeleteRoute) || ($.eventName = DisassociateRouteTable) }'
Note: You can choose your own metricName and metricNamespace strings. Using the same metricNamespace for all Foundations Benchmark metrics will group them together.
Create an SNS topic that the alarm will notify
aws sns create-topic --name <sns_topic_name>
Note: you can execute this command once and then re-use the same topic for all monitoring alarms.
Create an SNS subscription to the topic created in step 2
aws sns subscribe --topic-arn <sns_topic_arn> --protocol <protocol_for_sns> --notification-endpoint <sns_subscription_endpoints>
Note: you can execute this command once and then re-use the SNS subscription for all monitoring alarms.
Create an alarm that is associated with the CloudWatch Logs Metric Filter created in step 1 and an SNS topic created in step 2
aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name '<route_table_changes_alarm>' --metric-name '<route_table_changes_metric>' --statistic Sum --period 300 --threshold 1 --comparison-operator GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold --evaluation-periods 1 --namespace 'CISBenchmark' --alarm-actions <sns_topic_arn>