CloudWatch Logs Source

Onboarding CloudWatch as a Data Transport log source in the Panther Console

Overview

Panther supports configuring CloudWatch as a Data Transport to pull security logs from CloudWatch into your Panther account.

In order to enable real-time processing of log data, Panther will create a Firehose Delivery Stream and an S3 Bucket that will be used as the Delivery Stream's destination. A subscription filter is then configured for the CloudWatch Logs log group using the Firehose Delivery Stream as its destination. The required read permissions for processing files added by Firehose to the newly created S3 bucket are granted to the IAM role.

More details on this process can be found in Amazon's documentation: AWS Cloudwatch Logs documentation for subscriptions.

See the diagram below to understand how data flows from your application(s) into Panther using CloudWatch Logs (in SaaS):

How to set up a CloudWatch log source in Panther

Step 1: Configure CloudWatch in the Panther Console

1. In the left-hand navigation bar of your Panther Console, click Configure > Log Sources.

2. In the upper-right corner, click Create New.

3. Click the Custom Log Formats tile.

4. On the AWS CloudWatch Logs tile, click Start.

5. On the Setup your Source page, fill in the fields:

   • Name: Enter a descriptive name of the CloudWatch logs source.

   • Log Group Name: Enter the unique name of the CloudWatch logs group.

   • AWS Account ID: Enter the AWS Account ID number that your CloudWatch log group lives in.

   • Pattern Filter (optional): Use this field to filter data log data received from CloudWatch. Read more in Amazon's documentation on filter and pattern syntax.
   • Log Types: Select the Log Types Panther should use to parse CloudWatch logs. At least one Log Type must be selected from the dropdown menu.

6. Click Setup.

Step 2: Set up an IAM role

To read objects from your source, Panther needs an AWS IAM role with certain permissions. To set up this role, you can choose from the following options:

• Using the AWS Console UI

  • If this is the first Data Transport source you are setting up in Panther, select this option.

• CloudFormation or Terraform File

• I want to set up everything on my own

Using the AWS Console UI

Using the AWS Console UI

Launch a CloudFormation stack using the AWS console:

1. On the Create IAM Role page, on the Using the AWS Console UI tile, click Continue.

2. Click Launch Console UI.

   • You will be redirected to the AWS console in a new browser tab, with the template URL pre-filled.

   • The CloudFormation stack will create an AWS IAM role with the minimum required permissions to read objects from your source.

   • Click the "Outputs" tab of the CloudFormation stack in AWS, and note the Role ARN.

3. Navigate back to the Panther Console, and enter values in the fields:

   • (Not applicable if setting up an S3 Source) Bucket name – Required: Enter the outputted S3 bucket name.

   • Role ARN – Required: Enter the outputted IAM role ARN.

4. Click Setup.

CloudFormation or Terraform File

CloudFormation or Terraform File

Use Panther's provided CloudFormation or Terraform templates to create an IAM role:

1. On the Create IAM Role page, on the CloudFormation or Terraform File tile, click Continue.

2. On the CloudFormation or Terraform Template File page, depending on which Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provider you'd like to use, select either CloudFormation Template or Terraform Template.

3. Click Download Template.

   • You can also find the Terraform template at this GitHub link.
4. In your CLI, run the command(s) in the Workflow section.

5. After deploying the template in your IaC pipeline, enter values in the fields:

   • (Not applicable if setting up an S3 Source) Bucket name – Required: Enter the outputted S3 bucket name.

   • Role ARN – Required: Enter the outputted IAM role ARN.

6. Click Setup.

I want to set everything up on my own

I want to set everything up on my own

Create the IAM role manually, then enter the role ARN in Panther. When you set up the IAM role manually, you must also follow the "Manual IAM role creation: Additional steps" instructions below to configure your S3 buckets to send notifications when new data arrives.

1. On the Create IAM Role page, click I want to set up everything on my own.

2. Create an IAM role, either manually or through your own automation.

   • The IAM policy, which will be attached to the role, must include the statements defined below:

     {
         "Version": "2012-10-17",    
         "Statement": [
             {
                 "Action": "s3:GetBucketLocation",
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             },
             {
                 "Action": "s3:GetObject",
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>/<input-file-path>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             }
         ]
     }

   • If your S3 bucket is configured with server-side encryption using AWS KMS, you must include an additional statement granting the Panther API access to the corresponding KMS key. In this case, the policy will look something like this:

     {
         "Version": "2012-10-17",    
         "Statement": [
             {
                 "Action": "s3:GetBucketLocation",
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             },
             {
                 "Action": "s3:GetObject",
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>/<input-file-path>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             },
             {
                 "Action": ["kms:Decrypt", "kms:DescribeKey"],
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:<region>:<your-account-id>:key/<kms-key-id>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             }
         ]
     }

   • In addition to the above, if you want to view the contents of your S3 bucket in the Panther Console (such as to utilize the inferring custom schemas from historical data feature), you will need to add the s3:ListBucket action: \

     {   
          "Version": "2012-10-17",    
         "Statement": [
             {
                 "Action": [
                     "s3:GetBucketLocation",
                     "s3:ListBucket"
                 ],
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             },
             {
                 "Action": "s3:GetObject",
                 "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>/<input-file-path>",
                 "Effect": "Allow"
             }
         ]
     }

3. Add a trust policy to your role with the following AssumeRolePolicyDocument statement so that Panther can assume this role:

   {
     "Version": "2012-10-17",
     "Statement": [
       {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
           "AWS": [
             "arn:<aws-partition>:iam::<panther-master-account-id>:root"
           ]
         },
         "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
         "Condition": {
           "Bool": {
             "aws:SecureTransport": true
           }
         }
       }
     ]
   }

   • Populate <AWS-PARTITION> with the partition of the account running the Panther backend (e.g., aws). Note that we do not deploy to aws-cn or aws-us-gov.

   • Populate <PANTHER-MASTER-ACCOUNT-ID> with the 12-digit account ID where Panther is deployed. To get your AWS Account ID: Click the gear icon in the upper right side of the Panther Console to access Settings, then the AWS account ID is displayed at the bottom of the page.

4. In the Panther Console, enter values in the fields:

   • (Not applicable if setting up an S3 Source) Bucket name – Required: Enter the outputted S3 bucket name.

   • Role ARN – Required: Enter the outputted IAM role ARN.

5. Click Setup.

6. Proceed to the "Manual IAM role creation: Additional steps" section below.

Step 3: Finish the source setup

You will be directed to a success screen:

• You can optionally enable one or more Detection Packs.
• The Trigger an alert when no events are processed setting defaults to YES. We recommend leaving this enabled, as you will be alerted if data stops flowing from the log source after a certain period of time. The timeframe is configurable, with a default of 24 hours.

• If you have not done so already, click Attach or Infer Schemas to attach one or more schemas to the source.

Viewing ingested logs

After your log source is configured, you can search ingested data using Search or Data Explorer.

Manual IAM role creation: Additional steps

If during log source creation you opted to set up the IAM role manually, you must also follow the instructions below to configure your S3 bucket to send notifications when new data arrives.

Step 1: Create or modify an SNS topic

Create an SNS topic

How to create an SNS topic

Note: If you already have configured the bucket to send All object create events to an SNS topic, instead follow the "Modify an existing SNS topic" tab, and subscribe it to Panther's input data queue.

Only one SNS topic (per AWS account) is required, meaning multiple S3 buckets within one AWS account can all use the same SNS topic. If you've already created an SNS topic for a different S3 bucket in the same AWS account, you can skip this step.

First you need to create an SNS Topic and SNS Subscription to notify Panther that new data is ready for processing.

1. Log into the AWS Console of the account that owns the S3 bucket.

2. Select the AWS Region where your S3 bucket is located and navigate to the CloudFormation console.

3. Navigate to the Stacks section. Select Create Stack (with new resources).
4. Under the "Specify template" section, enter the following Amazon S3 URL:

   https://panther-public-cloudformation-templates.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/panther-log-processing-notifications/latest/template.yml

   
5. Specify the following stack details:

   • Stack name: A name of your choice, e.g. panther-log-processing-notifications-<bucket-label>

   • MasterAccountId: The 12 digit AWS Account ID where Panther is deployed

   • PantherRegion: The region where Panther is deployed

   • SnsTopicName: The name of the SNS topic receiving the notification. The default value is panther-notifications-topic

6. Click Next, Next, and then Create Stack to complete the process.

   • This stack has one output: SnsTopicArn.

Modify an existing SNS topic

How to modify an existing SNS topic

Follow the steps below if you wish to use an existing SNS topic for sending S3 bucket notifications. Note that the SNS topic must be in the same region as your S3 bucket.

Step 1: Enable KMS encryption for the SNS topic

1. Log in to the AWS console and navigate to KMS.

2. Select the KMS key you want to use for encryption.

3. Edit the policy to ensure it has the appropriate permissions to be used with the SNS topic and S3 bucket notifications.

   • Example policy:

     {
         "Sid": "Allow access for Key User (SNS Service Principal)",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
             "Service": "sns.amazonaws.com"
         },
         "Action": [
             "kms:GenerateDataKey*",
             "kms:Decrypt"
         ],
         "Resource": "<SNS-TOPIC-ARN>"
     },
     {
         "Sid": "Allow access for Key User (S3 Service Principal)",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
             "Service": "s3.amazonaws.com"
         },
         "Action": [
             "kms:GenerateDataKey*",
             "kms:Decrypt"
         ],
         "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket-name>"
     }

4. Click the Encryption tab under the SNS topic.

5. Click Enable, and specify the KMS key you want to use for encryption.

Step 2: Modify SNS topic Access Policy

Create a subscription between your SNS topic and Panther's log processing SQS queue.

1. Navigate to the SNS console and select the SNS topic currently receiving events.

   • Note the ARN of this SNS topic.

2. Click Edit and scroll down to the Access Policy card.

3. Add the following statement to the topic's Access Policy:

   {
     "Sid": "CrossAccountSubscription",
     "Effect": "Allow",
     "Principal": {
       "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::<PANTHER-MASTER-ACCOUNT-ID>:root"
     },
     "Action": "sns:Subscribe",
     "Resource": "<SNS-TOPIC-ARN>"
   }

   • Populate <PANTHER-MASTER-ACCOUNT-ID> with the 12-digit account ID where Panther is deployed. This AWS account ID can be found in your Panther Console at the bottom of the page after navigating to Settings by clicking the gear icon.

   • Populate SNS-TOPIC-ARN with the ARN you noted previously in this documentation.

Step 3: Create SNS subscription to SQS

Create the subscription to the Panther Master account's SQS queue.

1. From the SNS console, click Subscriptions.

2. Click Create subscription.

3. Fill out the form:

   • Topic ARN: Select the SNS topic you would like to use.

   • Protocol: Select Amazon SQS.

   • Endpoint: arn:aws:sqs:<PantherRegion>:<MasterAccountId>:panther-input-data-notifications-queue

   • Enable raw message delivery: Do not check this box. Raw message delivery must be disabled.

4. Click Create subscription.

If your subscription is in a "Pending" state and does not get confirmed immediately, you must finish setting up this log source in your Panther Console. Panther confirms the SNS subscription only if a Panther log source exists for the AWS account of the SNS topic.

Step 2: Configure event notifications on the S3 bucket

With the SNS topic created, the final step is to enable notifications from the S3 buckets.

1. Navigate to the AWS S3 console, select the relevant bucket, and click the Properties tab.
2. Locate the Event notifications card.

3. Click Create event notification and use the following settings:

   • In the General Configuration section:

     • Event name: PantherEventNotifications

     • Prefix (optional): Limits notifications to objects with keys that start with matching characters

     • Suffix (optional): Limits notifications to objects with keys that end in matching characters

       Avoid creating multiple filters that use overlapping prefixes and suffixes. Otherwise, your configuration will not be considered valid.
   • In the Event Types card, check the box next to All object create events.

   • In the Destination card:

     • Under Destination, select SNS topic.

     • For SNS topic, select the SNS topic you created or modified in an earlier step.

       • If you used the default topic name in the CloudFormation template provided, the SNS topic is named panther-notifications-topic.

       • If you are using a custom SNS topic, ensure it has the correct policies set and a subscription to the Panther SQS queue.

4. Click Save.

• Return to "Step 3: Finish the source setup," above.