What is AWS Inspector?
AWS Inspector is an automated vulnerability management service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It continuously scans your AWS workloads such as Amazon EC2 instances, Lambda functions, container images, and other resources to detect software vulnerabilities, malware, improper configurations, and other security issues.
Inspector runs assessments based on common vulnerabilities outlined in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database and Center for Internet Security (CIS) security benchmarks. It can quickly analyze your AWS deployments at scale without installing software agents.
Key capabilities of Inspector include:
- Continuous automated assessments
- Categorization of findings by severity level
- Custom suppression rules to filter out false positives
- Integration with AWS Security Hub, Amazon EventBridge, and other services
- Configurable alerts through Amazon SNS
In summary, Inspector serves as your automated security co-pilot, surfacing risks in your deployments so you can rapidly detect and resolve issues before they lead to breaches.
How Does AWS Inspector Work?
The workflow for leveraging Inspector consists of several key steps:
- Account Setup: Activate Inspector in your AWS account and grant the necessary permissions.
- Service Activation: Turn on Inspector assessments for your AWS resources like EC2 and Lambda.
- Initial Scans: Inspector immediately starts evaluating your environments based on embedded rules.
- Findings Review: Analyze and prioritize discoveries that Inspector flags in its dashboard view.
- Suppression Rules: Customize rules to automatically filter out lower priority findings.
- Alert Configuration: Set up Inspector alerts through Amazon SNS and EventBridge.
- Service Integration: Connect Inspector findings with AWS Security Hub and other tools.
Once enabled, Inspector continuously monitors resources as they change over time, keeping your deployments secured against the latest vulnerabilities.
Analyzing AWS Inspector‘s Capabilities
Now that we’ve covered the basics of how Inspector operates, let’s do a deeper analysis into some of its major capabilities and benefits:
Easy Activation
One of Inspector‘s biggest advantages is how simple it is to set up. With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, you can quickly activate Inspector and immediately start assessing your workloads. There‘s no need to install software agents or complex configuration. This makes it incredibly easy to gain visibility into your security posture.
Fully-Automated Assessments
Once enabled, Inspector automatically discovers your AWS resources and runs assessments without any manual intervention required. Checks are performed on an ongoing basis as your environments change. This frees up security teams from having to manually track assets or schedule scans.
Broad Vulnerability Coverage
Inspector leverages an embedded knowledge base of 10,000+ common software flaws, security misconfigurations, and exposures. This allows it to cover a wide range of vulnerability classes including remote code executions, cross-site scripting, SQL injections, weak passwords, and much more.
Intelligent Findings Prioritization
All Inspector findings are assigned a severity category ranging from Critical to Low. This allows you to quickly prioritize which discoveries require immediate investigation vs. those that pose lower levels of risk. The severity rankings help security teams focus on the vulnerabilities that matter most.
Native AWS Integration
A major advantage of Inspector is its tight integration with other AWS security services like Security Hub and EventBridge. This makes it easy to ingest findings into existing workflows. You can also configure Inspector to trigger real-time alerts through Amazon SNS whenever high priority risks emerge.
Cost-Effective Pricing
Inspector is extremely cost-effective, charging only based on the assessments performed per month. For most small and mid-sized organizations, Inspector can provide tremendous security value at a fraction of the cost of traditional vulnerability scanners and penetration testing services. The more assessments you run, the greater the economies of scale.
Potential Limitations of AWS Inspector
While Inspector provides immense security automation benefits, it’s important to be aware of some potential limitations compared to traditional vulnerability scanners:
Less Comprehensive Than Dedicated Scanners
Tools like Qualys and Nessus allow for more customized, fine-tuned scanning capabilities and typically detect a wider range of vulnerabilities. Inspector assessments may miss some flaws or misconfigurations.
Higher Likelihood of False Positives
The streamlined nature of Inspector assessments can occasionally produce false positives. You may need to leverage suppression rules to filter out inaccurate discoveries.
No Built-In Remediation Features
Unlike some scanners, Inspector focuses solely on detection. It does not provide direct self-healing or patch installation capabilities. You need to leverage other tools to resolve Inspector findings.
Limited Customization Options
There are fewer levers available to customize assessments compared to traditional scanning tools. However, Inspector checks are purpose-built for cloud resources and require less tuning.
So while Inspector may not replace the need for robust security scanners, it serves as an invaluable cloud workload-centric companion. The combination of automation, prioritized findings, and tight service integration make it a go-to component of any AWS security strategy.
Comparing AWS Inspector to the Alternatives
Let’s analyze how Inspector stacks up against some competitor offerings:
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides comparable workload assessments natively tailored for Azure resources. Like Inspector, it focuses specifically on cloud rather than traditional IT environments. If your workloads reside in Azure, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is likely the better fit given its tight integration.
Tenable.io
For broad vulnerability management across cloud, on-prem, hybrid, OT, and IoT environments, Tenable.io offers maximum flexibility and customization. It provides far more control over assessments at the expense of requiring advanced expertise. Inspector is better suited for predominantly AWS-centric shops.
Qualys VMDR
Qualys VMDR (Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response) has emerged as a leader for automated asset discovery, continuous scanning, and vulnerability prioritization. However, native public cloud workload coverage is less mature compared to Inspector. Qualys shines for traditional on-prem IT and legacy environments.
Release History and Evolution of AWS Inspector
Let‘s analyze how Inspector has advanced since its initial launch:
October 2015 – Amazon first unveiled Inspector as an automated assessment service specialized for EC2 instances.
April 2018 – Enhanced reporting, support for proxy environments, and CloudWatch metrics integration added.
December 2019 – Inspector v2 introduced with expanded workload coverage including Docker containers, serverless functions and more.
December 2021 – Fully revamped Inspector console launched with additional AWS service connections, improved risk scoring, and other features.
Throughout its evolution, Amazon has consistently focused on expanding Inspector‘s automation capabilities and AWS service integrations to boost security visibility and streamline remediation.
The latest incarnation as a robust cloud workload and vulnerability management platform positions Inspector as a cornerstone for securing AWS environments with minimal manual effort.
Frequently Asked Questions
What AWS resources can Inspector assess?
Inspector can assess Amazon EC2 instances, Lambda functions, container workloads including Amazon ECS clusters and Amazon EKS clusters, container images in Amazon ECR repositories, and more.
Does Inspector affect performance or availability?
Inspector runs checks in a non-intrusive manner with minimal impact to underlying workloads. It avoids actions that could disrupt normal function.
Can Inspector findings integrate with ticketing systems?
While Inspector lacks native ticketing capabilities, findings can connect with external systems like ServiceNow, Jira, and more through AWS Security Hub integrations.
What skills are needed to leverage Inspector?
Due to Inspector’s simplicity, most users can activate assessments through the console without coding. However, custom integrations may require basic scripting proficiency.
How does Inspector differ from penetration testing services?
Inspector takes an automated, continuously running approach focused on known vulnerabilities whereas pen testing leverages human-driven exploitation techniques to uncover risks. The two approaches are complementary for robust security.
