AWS Security Blog

How to import AWS IoT Device Defender audit findings into Security Hub

You can find an newer version of this solution that includes integration to AWS IoT Device Defender Detect on this IoT Blog

AWS Security Hub provides a comprehensive view of the security alerts and security posture in your accounts. In this blog post, we show how you can import AWS IoT Device Defender audit findings into Security Hub. You can then view and organize Internet of Things (IoT) security findings in Security Hub together with findings from other integrated AWS services, such as Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, Amazon Macie, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Access Analyzer, AWS Systems Manager, and more. You will gain a centralized security view across both enterprise and IoT types of workloads, and have an aggregated view of AWS IoT Device Defender audit findings. This solution can support AWS Accounts managed by AWS Organizations.

In this post, you’ll learn how the integration of IoT security findings into Security Hub works, and you can download AWS CloudFormation templates to implement the solution. After you deploy the solution, every failed audit check will be recorded as a Security Hub finding. The findings within Security Hub provides an AWS IoT Device Defender finding severity level and direct link to the AWS IoT Device Defender console so that you can take possible remediation actions. If you address the underlying findings or suppress the findings by using the AWS IoT Device Defender console, the solution function will automatically archive any related findings in Security Hub when a new audit occurs.

Solution scope

For this solution, we assume that you are familiar with how to set up an IoT environment and set up AWS IoT Device Defender. To learn more how to set up your environment, see the AWS tutorials, such as Getting started with AWS IoT Greengrass and Setting up AWS IoT Device Defender

The solution is intended for AWS accounts with fewer than 10,000 findings per scan. If AWS IoT Device Defender has more than 10,000 findings, the limit of 15 minutes for the duration of the serverless AWS Lambda function might be exceeded, depending on the network delay, and the function will fail.

The solution is designed for AWS Regions where AWS IoT Device Defender, serverless Lambda functionality and Security Hub are available; for more information, see AWS Regional Services. The China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia) Regions and the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions are excluded from the solution scope.

Solution overview

The templates that we provide here will provision an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic notifying you when the AWS IoT Device Defender report is ready, and a Lambda function that imports the findings from the report into Security Hub. Figure 1 shows the solution architecture.
 

Figure 1: Solution architecture

Figure 1: Solution architecture

The solution workflow is as follows:

  1. AWS IoT Device Defender performs an audit of your environment. You should set up a regular audit as described in Audit guide: Enable audit checks.
  2. AWS IoT Device Defender sends an SNS notification with a summary of the audit report.
  3. A Lambda function named import-iot-defender-findings-to-security-hub is triggered by the SNS topic.
  4. The Lambda function gets the details of the findings from AWS IoT Device Defender.
  5. The Lambda function imports the new findings to Security Hub and archives the previous report findings. An example of findings in Security Hub is shown in Figure 2.
     
    Figure 2: Security Hub findings example

    Figure 2: Security Hub findings example

Prerequisites

  • You must have Security Hub turned on in the Region where you’re deploying the solution.
  • You must also have your IoT environment set, see step by step tutorial at Getting started with AWS IoT Greengrass
  • You must also have AWS IoT Device Defender audit checks turned on. Learn how to configure recurring audit checks across all your IoT devices by using this tutorial.

Deploy the solution

You will need to deploy the solution once in each AWS Region where you want to integrate IoT security findings into Security Hub.

To deploy the solution

  1. Choose Launch Stack to launch the AWS CloudFormation console with the prepopulated CloudFormation demo template.

    Select the Launch Stack button to launch the template

    Additionally, you can download the latest solution code from GitHub.

  2. (Optional) In the CloudFormation console, you are presented with the template parameters before you deploy the stack. You can customize these parameters or keep the defaults:
    • S3 bucket with sources: This bucket contains all the solution sources, such as the Lambda function and templates. You can keep the default text if you’re not customizing the sources.
    • Prefix for S3 bucket with sources: The prefix for all the solution sources. You can keep the default if you’re not customizing the sources.
  3. Go to the AWS IoT Core console and set up an SNS alert notification parameter for the audit report. To do this, in the left navigation pane of the console, under Defend, choose Settings, and then choose Edit to edit the SNS alert. The SNS topic is created by the solution stack and named iot-defender-report-notification.
     
    Figure 3: SNS alert settings for AWS IoT Device Defender

    Figure 3: SNS alert settings for AWS IoT Device Defender

Test the solution

To test the solution, you can simulate an “AWS IoT policies are overly permissive” finding by creating an insecure policy.

To create an insecure policy

  1. Go to the AWS IoT Core console. In the left navigation pane, under Secure, choose Policies.
  2. Choose Create. For Name, enter InsecureIoTPolicy.
  3. For Action, select iot:*. For Resources, enter *. Choose Allow statement, and then choose Create.

Next, run a new IoT security audit by choosing IoT Core > Defend > Audit > Results > Create and selecting the option Run audit now (Once).

After the audit is finished, you’ll see audit reports in the AWS IoT Core console, similar to the ones shown in Figure 4. One of the reports shows that the IoT policies are overly permissive. The same findings are also imported into Security Hub as shown in Figure 2.
 

Figure 4: AWS IoT Device Defender report

Figure 4: AWS IoT Device Defender report

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot the solution, use the Amazon CloudWatch Logs of the Lambda function import-iot-defender-findings-to-security-hub. The solution can fail if:

  • Security Hub isn’t turned on in your Region
  • Service control policies (SCPs) are preventing access to AWS IoT Device Defender audit reports
  • The wrong SNS topic is configured in the AWS IoT Device Defender settings
  • The Lambda function times out because there are more than 10,000 findings

To find these issues, go to the CloudWatch console, choose Log Group, and then choose /aws/lambda/import-iot-defender-findings-to-security-hub.

Conclusion

In this post, you’ve learned how to integrate AWS IoT Device Defender audit findings with Security Hub to gain a centralized view of security findings across both your enterprise and IoT workloads. If you have more questions about IoT, you can reach out to the AWS IoT forum, and if you have questions about Security Hub, visit the AWS Security Hub forum. If you need AWS experts to help you plan, build, or optimize your infrastructure, contact AWS Professional Services.

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Author

Joaquin Manuel Rinaudo

Joaquin is a Senior Security Architect with AWS Professional Services. He is passionate about building solutions that help developers improve their software quality. Prior to AWS, he worked across multiple domains in the security industry, from mobile security to cloud and compliance related topics. In his free time, Joaquin enjoys spending time with family and reading science-fiction novels.

Author

Vesselin Tzvetkov

Vesselin is a Senior Security Architect at AWS Professional Services and is passionate about security architecture and engineering innovative solutions. Outside of technology, he likes classical music, philosophy, and sports. He holds a Ph.D. in security from TU-Darmstadt and a M.S. in electrical engineering from Bochum University in Germany.