Question 90 - DEA-C01 discussion

The requirement is to detect violations of data access policies and receive notifications with the username of the violator. AWS CloudTrail can provide object-level tracking for S3 to capture detailed API actions on specific S3 objects, including the user who performed the action.

AWS CloudTrail:

CloudTrail can monitor API calls made to an S3 bucket, including object-level API actions such as GetObject, PutObject, and DeleteObject. This will help detect access violations based on the API calls made by different users.

CloudTrail logs include details such as the user identity, which is essential for meeting the requirement of including the username in notifications.

The CloudTrail logs can be forwarded to Amazon CloudWatch to trigger alarms based on certain access patterns (e.g., violations of specific policies).

Amazon CloudWatch:

By forwarding CloudTrail logs to CloudWatch, you can set up alarms that are triggered when a specific condition is met, such as unauthorized access or policy violations. The alarm can include detailed information from the CloudTrail log, including the username.

Alternatives Considered:

A (AWS Config rules): While AWS Config can track resource configurations and compliance, it does not provide real-time, detailed tracking of object-level events like CloudTrail does.

B (CloudWatch metrics): CloudWatch does not gather object-level metrics for S3 directly. For this use case, CloudTrail provides better granularity.

D (S3 server access logs): S3 server access logs can monitor access, but they do not provide the real-time monitoring and alerting features that CloudTrail with CloudWatch alarms offer. They also do not include API-level granularity like CloudTrail.

AWS CloudTrail Integration with S3

Amazon CloudWatch Alarms