AWS vulnerability scanning fundamentals
AWS vulnerability scanning identifies security flaws across EC2 instances (including secrets mistakenly stored in user data), containers, Lambda functions, and other compute resources. It works by inspecting multiple layers of your environment, including operating system packages, application dependencies, and runtime configurations.
Authenticated scanning: The scanner uses credentials to log in and inspect installed software and configurations from the inside.
Unauthenticated scanning: The scanner looks from the outside to find open ports and exposed services without logging in.
You must scan both running workloads and pre-deployment artifacts, such as images in Amazon ECR and Lambda deployment packages. Continuous scanning is essential in dynamic cloud environments to catch issues as soon as they appear. This process detects known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) from databases like the NVD, as well as dangerous misconfigurations.
AWS Security Best Practices [Cheat Sheet]
This cheat sheet goes beyond the essential AWS security best practices and offers actionable step-by-step implementations, relevant code snippets, and industry- leading recommendations to fortify your AWS security posture.
AWS shared responsibility model for vulnerability management
AWS is responsible for securing the cloud infrastructure, including the hypervisor, physical security, and managed service components. You are responsible for securing the operating system, applications, data, network configuration, and identity management.
EC2 (IaaS): You manage OS patching, security groups, and application vulnerabilities.
RDS/Lambda (Managed Services): AWS handles the underlying infrastructure and engine patching, while you manage database access controls, encryption settings, and secure configurations for RDS.
Responsibility shifts based on the service type, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) versus Platform as a Service (PaaS). Understanding this model is critical for choosing the right scanning approach for each resource. You must implement your own scanning strategy because AWS will not automatically patch your customer applications, especially critical given that industry analyses show most cloud security failures result from customer misconfigurations.
Core vulnerability scanning approaches in AWS
There are three primary methods for scanning workloads in AWS: agentless, agent-based, and hybrid approaches.
Agentless scanning: Uses AWS APIs and snapshot analysis to scan without installing software on instances, offering immediate deployment and no performance impact.
Agent-based scanning: Deploys software agents on EC2 instances for deep inspection of running processes and file systems.
Hybrid approach: Combines both methods to ensure comprehensive coverage across different workload types and security requirements.
Choose your scanning approach based on your specific requirements:
Use agentless scanning when: You need broad discovery across EC2, containers, and Lambda; you want to avoid agent deployment and maintenance overhead; you need to scan offline or stopped instances; or you're scanning ephemeral workloads that don't persist long enough for agent installation
Use agent-based scanning when: You need real-time workload behavior monitoring; you require precise runtime reachability analysis; you want to detect configuration drift as it happens; or you need active blocking capabilities for zero-day threats
Use hybrid approaches when: You operate complex environments with both long-lived and ephemeral workloads, or when you need comprehensive coverage that combines broad discovery with deep runtime visibility
Critical capabilities for effective AWS vulnerability scanning
Effective scanning starts with comprehensive asset discovery across all AWS regions and accounts. You need automatic detection of EC2 instances, ECS/EKS containers, and Lambda functions to prevent blind spots.
Container image scanning: Analyzes images in Amazon ECR on push and supports periodic rescans as new CVEs emerge.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning: Analyzes infrastructure definitions before deployment to identify security misconfigurations and policy violations.
Lambda function scanning identifies vulnerable libraries, hardcoded secrets in environment variables, and over-privileged IAM execution roles. Integrating these findings with AWS Security Hub provides a centralized view of your security posture. Automated remediation workflows help you fix issues faster by connecting scanners directly to your ticketing systems.
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Advanced vulnerability prioritization techniques
Relying solely on CVSS scores is insufficient for accurately assessing risk in cloud environments. You need contextual risk scoring that considers factors like network exposure, identity permissions, and data sensitivity.
Toxic combinations: Situations where multiple risks, such as a vulnerable workload with public exposure and high privileges (commonly observed in cloud environments), compound to create immediate danger.
Attack path analysis: Maps how an attacker could chain vulnerabilities to move laterally through your environment.
Reachability analysis determines if vulnerable code is actually executed by the application, reducing false positives. Integrate threat intelligence feeds from sources like CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities), vendor security advisories, and commercial threat intelligence platforms. When a zero-day emerges, implement this response pattern: First, query your asset inventory to identify affected resources within minutes.
Second, pre-stage compensating controls such as AWS WAF rules to block known exploit patterns or VPC network ACL changes to restrict access while patches are tested.
Third, activate your emergency patch playbook with pre-approved change windows and rollback procedures. Subscribe to AWS Security Bulletins and enable Amazon Inspector's integration with threat intelligence feeds to automatically flag newly disclosed vulnerabilities affecting your environment. You should establish risk-based SLAs to ensure critical, internet-facing vulnerabilities are patched immediately while lower risks are managed over time.
Implementation challenges and solutions
High volumes of low-context findings often lead to alert fatigue for security teams. You can solve this by filtering results based on exploitability and exposure.
Ephemeral resources: Auto-scaling instances and containers disappear quickly, making them hard to scan without agentless snapshot methods.
Unclear ownership: Tagging resources with team metadata ensures findings are routed to the correct people for remediation.
Limited visibility into container layers requires integrating ECR scanning into your build pipelines. Connecting scanners to tools like Jira or Slack bridges the gap between security and development workflows. Continuous scanning ensures you meet compliance requirements for frequency and coverage, while optimizing scan frequency helps manage costs.
Outils de sécurité AWS : guide complet pour sécuriser son environnement cloud
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Agentless vulnerability management for AWS environments
Agentless scanning in AWS uses native APIs and snapshot technology to inspect resources. Amazon Inspector offers a hybrid scan mode for EC2. It primarily uses the AWS Systems Manager (SSM) agent, but can automatically switch to agentless scanning via EBS snapshots for instances not managed by SSM.
Zero deployment overhead: You do not need to install, configure, or maintain agents on your instances.
Immediate coverage: The scanner detects and assesses existing resources as soon as you connect the account.
This approach reduces blind spots from missed agent installs and configuration drift, improving coverage at scale. Third-party agentless solutions extend these capabilities by providing cross-cloud visibility and deeper contextual analysis. While agent-based methods offer runtime monitoring, agentless scanning is often more efficient for dynamic cloud environments.
How Wiz enhances AWS vulnerability scanning
Wiz is a cloud-native security platform that extends AWS vulnerability management with a completely agentless approach. It provides full coverage across EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda, and other AWS services without impacting workload performance.
Wiz Security Graph: Correlates vulnerabilities with network exposure, IAM permissions, and sensitive data access to highlight critical risks.
Agentless Approach: Our agentless design means rapid deployment and minimal performance impact, focusing on least privilege access and comprehensive coverage without blind spots.
Toxic combinations: Identifies where vulnerabilities and misconfigurations combine to create exploitable attack paths.
Code-to-cloud correlation traces vulnerabilities back to their source repositories for faster remediation. Wiz integrates with workflows like GitHub and Slack to route issues automatically to the right teams. It offers unified visibility across AWS and other cloud providers for complex multi-cloud environments. The Wiz Runtime Sensor adds an extra layer of validation to confirm if vulnerable packages are actively used in production.
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