Detections
Analytics

3.1 Ensure CloudTrail is enabled in all regions

Information

AWS CloudTrail is a web service that records AWS API calls for your account and delivers log files to you. The recorded information includes the identity of the API caller, the time of the API call, the source IP address of the API caller, the request parameters, and the response elements returned by the AWS service. CloudTrail provides a history of AWS API calls for an account, including API calls made via the Management Console, SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services (such as CloudFormation).

Rationale:

The AWS API call history produced by CloudTrail enables security analysis, resource change tracking, and compliance auditing. Additionally,

ensuring that a multi-regions trail exists will ensure that unexpected activity occurring in otherwise unused regions is detected

ensuring that a multi-regions trail exists will ensure that Global Service Logging is enabled for a trail by default to capture recording of events generated on AWS global services

for a multi-regions trail, ensuring that management events configured for all type of Read/Writes ensures recording of management operations that are performed on all resources in an AWS account

Impact:

S3 lifecycle features can be used to manage the accumulation and management of logs over time. See the following AWS resource for more information on these features:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/object-lifecycle-mgmt.html

Solution

Perform the following to enable global (Multi-region) CloudTrail logging:
From Console:

Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudtrail

Click on Trails on the left navigation pane

Click Get Started Now , if presented

Click Add new trail

Enter a trail name in the Trail name box

A trail created in the console is a multi-region trail by default

Specify an S3 bucket name in the S3 bucket box

Specify the AWS KMS alias under the Log file SSE-KMS encryption section or create a new key

Click Next

Ensure Management events check box is selected.

Ensure both Read and Write are check under API activity

Click Next

review your trail settings and click Create trail

From Command Line:

aws cloudtrail create-trail --name <trail_name> --bucket-name <s3_bucket_for_cloudtrail> --is-multi-region-trail
aws cloudtrail update-trail --name <trail_name> --is-multi-region-trail

Note: Creating CloudTrail via CLI without providing any overriding options configures Management Events to set All type of Read/Writes by default.

Default Value:

Not Enabled

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/14207

Item Details

Category: AUDIT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

References: 800-53|AU-3, 800-53|AU-3(1), 800-53|AU-7, 800-53|AU-12, CCE|CCE-78913-1, CSCv7|6.2

Plugin: amazon_aws

Control ID: 85efe0bd10b82def77e89e3cefb549bd60ba3dfd84e1e628bc0079a67be3c54f