Amazon S3 Update – CloudTrail Integration

You can now use AWS CloudTrail to track bucket-level operations on your Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets.  The tracked operations include creation and deletion of buckets, modifications to access controls, changes to lifecycle policies, and changes to cross-region replication settings.

AWS CloudTrail records API activity in your AWS account and delivers the resulting log files to a designated S3 bucket. You can  look up API activity related to creating, deleting and modifying your S3 resources using the CloudTrail Console, including access to 7 days of historical data. You can also create Amazon CloudWatch Alarms to look for specific API activities and receive email notifications when they occur.

Effective today we are now logging actions on S3 buckets to CloudTrail in all AWS Regions. If you have already enabled CloudTrail, you do not need to take any further action in order to take advantage of this new feature.  If you are not using CloudTrail, you can turn it on with a couple of clicks (read my introductory post – AWS CloudTrail – Capture API Activity) to learn more.

You can use the log files in many different ways. For example, you can use them as supporting evidence if you need to demonstrate compliance with internal or external policies. Let’s say that you store some important files in an S3 bucket. You can set up a CloudWatch Alarm that will fire if someone else in your organization makes changes to the bucket’s access control policy. This will allow you to verify that the change is in compliance with your policies and to take immediate corrective action if necessary.

You can also monitor creation and deletion of buckets, updates to life cycle policies, and changes to the cross-region replication settings.

— Jeff;