AWS Forensics

Key Artifacts in Cloud Forensics:

Essential Artifacts:

• Logs: Collect logs from cloud services, including access logs, activity logs, and network logs, to trace actions and identify anomalies.
• Snapshots: Capture snapshots of virtual machines and storage volumes to preserve the state of systems for analysis.
• Metadata: Gather metadata related to cloud resources, such as timestamps, user activities, and configuration changes.

Best Practices:

• Timely Collection: Promptly collect and preserve data to prevent loss due to retention policies.
• Access Control: Ensure proper permissions are in place to secure forensic data and prevent unauthorized access.
• Collaboration: Work closely with cloud service providers to understand available forensic tools and support.

Effective Investigation:

• Tool Utilization: Use specialized forensic tools compatible with cloud environments to analyze collected data.
• Chain of Custody: Maintain detailed records of data handling to ensure evidence integrity.
• Documentation: Keep comprehensive documentation of findings, methodologies, and actions taken during the investigation.

AWS Forensics involves collecting, analyzing, and preserving evidence from Amazon Web Services (AWS) environments to investigate security incidents, data breaches, or malicious activities.

1. Preserve and Secure Evidence

• Isolate compromised instances to prevent further damage.
• Create snapshots of EBS volumes, capture instance memory, and secure logs.
• Tools: AWS CLI (Download), Volatility (Download)

2. Collect and Extract Data

• Gather CloudTrail logs, VPC flow logs, CloudWatch events, and S3 bucket contents.
• Export IAM user activity and security group configurations.
• Tools: AWS CloudTrail (Download), CloudWatch (Download)

3. Analyze AWS Artifacts

• Investigate logs for suspicious API calls, unauthorized access, and abnormal behavior.
• Perform memory analysis on compromised instances.
• Tools: GuardDuty (Download), Volatility (Download)

4. Recover Deleted or Altered Data

• Restore deleted snapshots, retrieve object version history from S3, and investigate EBS snapshots.
• Tools: AWS Backup (Download), RDS Point-in-Time Recovery (Download)

5. Authenticate and Verify Integrity

• Validate log integrity with hash values and timestamps.
• Use AWS KMS (Key Management Service) to verify encrypted data authenticity.
• Tools: AWS KMS (Download), Log Parser Studio (Download)

6. Document and Report

• Record instance IDs, IP addresses, API calls, and evidence timelines.
• Create a comprehensive forensic report with log analysis, threat actor actions, and remediation steps.

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Open-Source Tools:

1. AWS CLI: Manage AWS services and collect forensic artifacts. Download
2. Volatility: Perform memory forensics on AWS EC2 instances. Download

Commercial Tools:

1. AWS CloudTrail: Track and log AWS account activity. Download
2. GuardDuty: Threat detection and monitoring for AWS environments. Download
3. AWS Backup: Automate backups and recover deleted AWS resources. Download
4. AWS KMS: Manage and verify encryption keys. Download

Log Parser Studio: Analyze log files for suspicious patterns. Download