AWS CloudTrail vs AWS Config

Overview

AWS CloudTrail

Stacks304

Followers280

Votes14

AWS Config

Stacks56

Followers102

Votes6

AWS CloudTrail vs AWS Config: What are the differences?

Introduction:

AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config are both services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that help organizations in managing and auditing their AWS resources. While they have some similarities and overlap in functionality, there are several key differences between the two services.

Data Collection: AWS CloudTrail focuses on auditing and monitoring AWS API activity. It captures detailed information about API calls made within an AWS account, including who made the call, when it was made, and which resources were affected. This data is essential for security and compliance purposes, as it provides an audit trail of all API activity within an AWS environment. On the other hand, AWS Config focuses on recording the configuration history of AWS resources. It captures the configuration details of each resource and maintains a timeline of all configuration changes. This enables users to assess and audit the state of their AWS resources at any point in time.
Scope of Monitoring: AWS CloudTrail provides a comprehensive and centralized view of API activity across an entire AWS account. It captures API calls made to various AWS services, including EC2, S3, IAM, and RDS, among others. In contrast, AWS Config provides resource-level monitoring, focusing on the configuration of individual AWS resources rather than API activity. It records configuration changes made to resources like EC2 instances, security groups, and S3 buckets, allowing users to track and manage resource-level changes specifically.
Real-Time Monitoring: AWS CloudTrail provides real-time monitoring capabilities, allowing users to receive near real-time notifications of API activity. This enables organizations to respond quickly to any suspicious or unauthorized activity within their AWS infrastructure. AWS Config, on the other hand, primarily operates on a periodic basis (typically every few minutes) to capture the configuration state of resources. It can also be triggered by specific events such as configuration changes or periodic snapshots, but it does not offer continuous, real-time monitoring capabilities like AWS CloudTrail.
Integration with Other AWS Services: AWS CloudTrail integrates with several other AWS services, such as AWS CloudWatch, AWS EventBridge, and AWS Lambda. This integration allows users to analyze and respond to CloudTrail events in real-time, triggering automated actions or alerts based on specific conditions. AWS Config also provides integration capabilities with services like AWS CloudWatch, which can be used to monitor the configuration changes captured by AWS Config. However, the level of integration is more focused on monitoring and analysis rather than triggering real-time actions based on specific events.
Retention Period: AWS CloudTrail has a default retention period of 90 days for log files, which can be extended up to 365 days. This ensures that the API activity logs are available for a significant period, allowing organizations to meet their compliance and auditing requirements. On the other hand, AWS Config has a default retention period of 7 days for configuration history, which can be increased up to 7 years. While both services provide options for extended retention periods, their default and maximum retention periods differ significantly.
Cost and Pricing Model: AWS CloudTrail incurs charges based on the volume of API events recorded, the number of trails configured, and any data events captured. Pricing for AWS Config, on the other hand, is based on the number of AWS resources recorded and the number of configuration snapshots taken. Comparing the cost of the two services can be subjective depending on factors such as the size of the environment, the volume of API activity, and the complexity of resource configurations.

**In Summary, AWS CloudTrail focuses on auditing and monitoring AWS API activity in real-time, while AWS Config records the configuration history of AWS resources to enable assessment and auditing of resource-level changes. CloudTrail provides a comprehensive view of API activity across an AWS account, while Config focuses on resource-level monitoring. CloudTrail has real-time monitoring capabilities, while Config operates more on a periodic basis. Both services integrate with other AWS services but with different levels of functionality. CloudTrail has a longer default retention period for log files, while Config offers a longer default retention period for configuration history. Finally, the cost and pricing models of the two services vary based on different factors.

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Advice on AWS CloudTrail, AWS Config

Jigar

Security Software Engineer at Cisco

Jul 2, 2020

Needs adviceon

AWS IAM

Amazon EC2

Splunk Cloud

We would like to detect unusual config changes that can potentially cause production outage.

Such as, SecurityGroup new allow/deny rule, AuthZ policy change, Secret key/certificate rotation, IP subnet add/drop. The problem is the source of all of these activities is different, i.e., AWS IAM, Amazon EC2, internal prod services, envoy sidecar, etc.

Which of the technology would be best suitable to detect only IMP events (not all activity) from various sources all workload running on AWS and also Splunk Cloud?

168k views168k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

AWS CloudTrail	AWS Config
With CloudTrail, you can get a history of AWS API calls for your account, including API calls made via the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services (such as AWS CloudFormation). The AWS API call history produced by CloudTrail enables security analysis, resource change tracking, and compliance auditing. 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.	AWS Config is a fully managed service that provides you with an AWS resource inventory, configuration history, and configuration change notifications to enable security and governance. With AWS Config you can discover existing AWS resources, export a complete inventory of your AWS resources with all configuration details, and determine how a resource was configured at any point in time. These capabilities enable compliance auditing, security analysis, resource change tracking, and troubleshooting.
Increased Visibility- CloudTrail provides increased visibility into your user activity by recording AWS API calls. You can answer questions such as, what actions did a given user take over a given time period? For a given resource, which user has taken actions on it over a given time period? What is the source IP address of a given activity? Which activities failed due to inadequate permissions?;Durable and Inexpensive Log File Storage- CloudTrail uses Amazon S3 for log file storage and delivery, so log files are stored durably and inexpensively. You can use Amazon S3 lifecycle configuration rules to further reduce storage costs. For example, you can define rules to automatically delete old log files or archive them to Amazon Glacier for additional savings.;Easy Administration- CloudTrail is a fully managed service; you simply turn on CloudTrail for your account using the AWS Management Console, the Command Line Interface, or the CloudTrail SDK and start receiving CloudTrail log files in the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket that you specify.;Reliable- CloudTrail continuously transports events from AWS services using a highly available and fault tolerant processing pipeline.;Timely Delivery- CloudTrail typically delivers events within 15 minutes of the API call.;Log File Aggregation- CloudTrail can be configured to aggregate log files across multiple accounts and regions so that log files are delivered to a single bucket. Please refer to the of the AWS CloudTrail User Guide for detailed instructions.;Notifications for Log File Delivery- CloudTrail can be configured to publish a notification for each log file delivered, thus enabling you to automatically take action upon log file delivery. CloudTrail uses the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) for notifications.;Choice of Partner Solutions- Multiple partners including AlertLogic, Boundary, Loggly, Splunk and Sumologic offer integrated solutions to analyze CloudTrail log files. These solutions include features like change tracking, troubleshooting, and security analysis.	Configuration Visibility;Fully Managed;Easy to get started;Low cost;Ecosystem of Partner solutions
Statistics
Stacks 304	Stacks 56
Followers 280	Followers 102
Votes 14	Votes 6
Pros & Cons
Pros 7 Very easy setup 3 Good integrations with 3rd party tools 2 Very powerful 2 Backup to S3	Pros 4 Backed by Amazon 2 One stop solution Cons 2 Not user friendly
Integrations
Boundary Loggly Splunk Cloud	No integrations available

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