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CTHFM: AWS
  • Welcome
  • Getting Started
    • Account Setup
  • AWS CLI
    • AWS CLI Overview
    • Installation
  • AWS Fundamentals
    • AWS Documentation
    • AWS Shared Responsibility Model
    • Organizational Hierarchy
    • AWS Principals
    • IAM Fundamentals
      • IAM Policy Components
      • IAM Documentation References
    • AWS Security Services Overview
    • AWS Core Services
    • AWS Frameworks
    • Regions and Availability Zones
  • SQL
    • SQL Refresher for Threat Hunting
  • Logging Reference
    • Cloudtrail
      • What is Cloudtrail?
      • Setting Up Cloudtrail
      • Cloudtrail Events Structure
      • Filtering and Searching CloudTrail Logs
      • IAM ID Prefixes
      • Additional Resources
      • API References
    • VPCFlow Logs
    • GuardDuty
      • Multi-Account Setup
      • GuardDuty Concepts
      • GuardDuty Finding References
      • S3 Protection
      • Malware Protection
        • EC2 Malware Protection
          • EC2 Protection Resources
          • Monitoring Scans
          • EC2 Malware Protection Events: CloudWatch
        • S3 Malware Protection
          • Enabling S3 Malware Protection
          • After Enabling S3 Malware Protection
          • S3 Malware Resource Plan Status
          • S3 Malware Protection Quotas
      • RDS Protection Enablement
      • Lambda Protection Enablement
      • Trusted IP Lists and Threat Lists in Amazon GuardDuty
      • Remediation Recommendations
      • GuardDuty API Reference
      • GuardDuty Quotas
    • Access Analyzer
      • Setup
      • External Access and Unused Access Analyzer Findings
      • Review Findings
      • Access Analyzer Resources
      • Access Analyzer API Reference
    • AWS Network Firewall
      • Permissions
      • Firewall Log Contents
      • Logging Destinations
      • CloudWatch Firewall Metrics
    • AWS Config
      • Resource Management in AWS Config
      • AWS Config Integrations
      • AWS Config Resources
      • Configuration Item
      • Config Rules
        • Evaluation Modes
  • CloudWatch
    • Amazon CloudWatch
      • CloudWatch Concepts
      • CloudWatch Metrics
        • Filter Pattern Syntax
      • CloudWatch Alarms
        • Alarm Recommendations
      • Subscriptions
      • CloudWatch Agent
      • CloudWatch Insights
        • Supported Logs and Discovered Fields
        • CloudWatch Insights Query Syntax
      • Anomaly Detection
        • Create Anomaly Detector
        • Alarms for Anomaly Detections
      • CloudWatch Filter Syntax
      • CloudWatch Service Quota
  • Athena For Threat Hunting
    • Introduction to Athena
    • Setting Up Athena
    • SQL For Threat Hunters
    • Automated Response
    • Query Best Practices
  • AWS Security Research and Resources
    • AWS Security Blog
    • AWS Goat
    • Cloud Goat
    • Pacu
    • Prowler
    • Scout Suite
  • Threat Hunting in AWS
    • Threat Hunting in AWS
    • Threat Hunting Introduction
    • Threat Hunting Process
      • Hypothesis Generation
      • Investigation
      • Identification
      • Resolution & Follow Up
    • Pyramid of Pain
    • MITRE Att&ck
      • MITRE Att&ck Concepts
      • MITRE Att&CK Data Sources
      • MITRE Att&CK Mitigations
    • MITRE Att&ck: AWS
      • MITRE Att&CK Matrix
      • Amazon Web Services Security Control Mappings
    • AWS Threat Hunting Ideas
      • AWS Threat Hunting Ideas: EC2
      • AWS Threat Hunting Ideas: Lambda
      • AWS Threat Hunting Ideas: SQS
      • AWS Threat Hunting Ideas: SNS
      • AWS Threat Hunting Ideas: RDS
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On this page
  • Introduction to Amazon Athena
  • What is Amazon Athena?
  • Use Cases for Threat Hunting with Amazon Athena
  • How Athena Fits into a Security Workflow
  • Advantages of Using Athena for Threat Hunting
  • Comparison with Other AWS Data Services
  1. Athena For Threat Hunting

Introduction to Athena

Introduction to Amazon Athena

This first module will cover the basics of Amazon Athena, including what it is, its architecture, how it fits into threat hunting, and the advantages it offers for security analysts. The goal is to provide a clear understanding of Athena’s value in a security context.

What is Amazon Athena?

Amazon Athena is a serverless query service that allows you to run SQL queries directly against data stored in Amazon S3 without needing to manage any infrastructure. It supports structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, such as CSV, JSON, Parquet, and more. Since Athena is serverless, you only pay for the queries you run, making it a cost-effective option for performing ad-hoc data analysis.

Key Features of Amazon Athena:

  • Serverless: No infrastructure to manage, and queries scale automatically.

  • SQL Interface: Uses standard SQL, which makes it easy to learn and use.

  • Data Catalog Integration: Uses AWS Glue to manage metadata and schema.

  • Security Integration: Supports IAM roles and encryption to ensure secure access.

  • Quick Setup: Get insights within minutes of storing your data in S3.

Use Cases for Threat Hunting with Amazon Athena

Threat hunters deal with large volumes of security data from multiple sources, such as CloudTrail logs, VPC Flow Logs, GuardDuty alerts, and application logs. Athena makes it easy to query and correlate these logs, providing the following advantages:

Common Threat Hunting Scenarios:

  1. Analyzing CloudTrail Logs: Track user activities, detect unauthorized access, and investigate misconfigurations.

  2. Querying VPC Flow Logs: Identify unusual network traffic patterns, detect large outbound transfers, and monitor connections to malicious IPs.

  3. Investigating GuardDuty Alerts: Query GuardDuty logs to respond to security findings and understand attack patterns.

  4. Log Enrichment and Correlation: Combine multiple datasets (e.g., CloudTrail + VPC Flow Logs) to create more comprehensive threat intelligence.

Example Scenario:

  • Data Exfiltration Detection: Query VPC Flow Logs to find large outbound transfers and correlate them with CloudTrail logs to see if unauthorized users accessed the resources.

How Athena Fits into a Security Workflow

In an enterprise security setting, data flows from multiple sources into S3. This data can include audit logs, network logs, alerts from security tools, and more. Threat hunters need a fast, scalable way to query this data and extract actionable insights.

Athena’s Role in the Security Workflow:

  1. Data Collection and Storage Logs from CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and VPC Flow Logs are stored in Amazon S3.

  2. Data Analysis with SQL Queries Threat hunters use SQL queries in Athena to identify patterns and detect malicious activity.

  3. Automation and Alerting Scheduled Athena queries can be triggered via EventBridge to automate threat detection, and alerts can be forwarded to Security Hub or GuardDuty for response.

  4. Integration with AWS Tools Athena works seamlessly with services like QuickSight for visualization and Lambda for automated responses.

Advantages of Using Athena for Threat Hunting

Athena offers several benefits that make it a powerful tool for threat hunting and security analysis:

  1. Cost-Effective: Pay only for the data scanned by each query, with no need for expensive infrastructure.

  2. Scalable: Athena scales automatically, allowing you to query massive datasets without performance issues.

  3. Flexible Data Formats: Supports common formats like JSON, CSV, and Parquet, making it easy to analyze logs from various sources.

  4. Rapid Insights: Query results are returned within seconds to minutes, enabling quick investigation during an incident.

  5. Ease of Use: Security professionals can use SQL, a widely known language, to analyze complex datasets without needing specialized tools.

Comparison with Other AWS Data Services

While Athena is an excellent tool for ad-hoc querying, it is important to understand how it compares to other services like Amazon Redshift and AWS Glue.

Service

Use Case

Strengths

Limitations

Athena

Ad-hoc queries on S3 data

Serverless, SQL interface

Limited to S3 as a data source

Redshift

Data warehousing for complex queries

High performance for large datasets

Requires cluster management

Glue

Data catalog and ETL processes

Automated schema discovery

Not optimized for ad-hoc queries

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Last updated 8 months ago