AWS GuardDuty

GuardDuty, an advanced security service provided by AWS is designed to provide comprehensive threat detection capabilities for your AWS environment. With its robust features and seamless integration with AWS and leading threat intelligence feeds, GuardDuty offers unparalleled protection against malicious activity, ensuring the security and integrity of your cloud infrastructure.

GuardDuty uses machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence to identify and prioritise potential threats. It does not just provide alerts for the security teams to investigate. It also provides context to the security operations team to determine whether a further investigation is required or not. 
 

GuardDuty goes beyond traditional rule-based methods. It autonomously analyses vast amounts of data, identifying abnormal patterns and behaviours that may indicate potential threats, all without the need for manual intervention.

GuardDuty keeps a vigilant eye on your AWS environment around the clock, providing real-time threat detection and alerting capabilities. With this constant monitoring, any potential threats or malicious activities will be promptly identified and addressed, ensuring the safety of your critical assets. 

GuardDuty seamlessly integrates with various AWS services, expanding its capabilities and strengthening your overall security posture. It integrates with a number of AWS Native services like Amazon CloudWatch Events. Tt can also monitor for S3 threats and work with AWS Inspector by enhancing security posture by identifying misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.  

There is also support from AWS Security Hub where we can centralise and manage security findings. This holistic view enables you to gain actionable insights, streamline security operations, and effectively prioritise and remediate potential risks across your entire AWS infrastructure. 

A traditional firewall typically focuses on securing the network perimeter, checking and controlling incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. However, it might not be entirely sufficient for protecting web applications. This is where a Web Application Firewall comes into the picture.
 

A WAF operates at the application layer (Layer 7 of the OSI model) and can inspect the contents of the traffic to identify and block suspicious and malicious activities. It serves as a shield between the web application and the internet, analysing HTTP/HTTPS requests before they reach the application. This can significantly reduce the potential attack surface and protect against application-specific attacks.

GFT champions WAFs primarily for it's ability to protect web applications by screening and filtering out malicious web traffic. WAFs are designed to protect web applications by inspecting and filtering out malicious web traffic. It does this by applying a set of rules that define what is considered malicious activity. These rules can be tailored to fit the needs of specific applications and can defend against threats like SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, and DDoS attacks and most of the commonly exploited web application flaws.

GFT endorse AWS WAF for its comprehensive protection of web applicationshosted on Amazon Web Services. By using AWS Managed Rules, it effectively prevents common vulnerabilities and unwanted traffic, offers layer 7 flood protection, and shields against scanners, probes, and bad bots. AWS WAF also supports custom rule creation for specific needs, and IP reputation management to block malicious IP addresses. Seamlessly integrating with AWS services like AWS Lambda, it provides an advanced level of automation, robust monitoring, and management features.