AWS VPC

Connecting AWS VPC logs to your Panther Console

Overview

Panther supports ingesting Amazon Web Services (AWS) Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) logs via AWS S3.

How to onboard AWS VPC logs to Panther

Step 1: Configure logging in AWS

The AWS configuration differs depending on if you are onboarding VPC DNS or flow logs. If you are onboarding both DNS and flow logs, you must follow the processes in both tabs below.

With some configuration in AWS, you can use this integration to monitor DNS queries. Malicious actors can use DNS for data theft, C2, DNS tunneling, cache poisoning, DNS hijacking, and more. Logging the queries made and responses received by devices in your network can be valuable in proactive alerting and investigations.

The instructions below explain how to log queries from your AWS services within VPCs to an S3 bucket. The query logging configuration happens within Route 53 and applies to the VPCs within your specified region. A configuration is required per region, but can be applied to multiple VPCs of that region.

  1. Log in to your AWS account.

  2. Navigate to the Route 53 service within the region you plan to log.

  3. On the lefthand side, under Resolver, click Query Logging.

    • You should be redirected to a “Query logging configurations” page. If not, try clicking “Query Logging” link again.

    The query logging configurations page in AWS has a message in the middle of the screen that says you don't have any configurations
  4. In the upper right corner, click Configure Query Logging.

  5. On the next page, fill in the Query Logging configuration form:

    • Name: Enter a descriptive name.

    • Destination for query logs: Select S3 bucket.

    • Amazon S3 Bucket: Select the S3 bucket where you want to configure query logging.

    • VPC Logs: Add all the VPCs you would like to start logging DNS queries from. Search for a VPC, then click Add VPC.

  6. At the bottom of the page, click Configure query logging.

    • Within a few minutes, you should start receiving logs within your S3 bucket at s3://BucketName/BucketPrefix/AWSLogs/ACCOUNTID/vpcdnsquerylogs/VPCName/Year/Month/Day

Step 2: Create a new AWS VPC source in Panther

You will need to set up an AWS VPC source in Panther, which indicates which S3 bucket the logs will be streamed from.

If you are onboarding both DNS and flow logs:

  • If both types of logs are configured to be sent to the same S3 bucket, you can create one AWS VPC log source in Panther.

  • If you have configured your DNS and flow logs to be sent to different S3 buckets, you must complete this step twice (setting up two log sources in Panther).

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

  2. Click Create New.

  3. Search for "AWS VPC," then click its tile.

  4. Click Start Setup.

Example DNS event

Panther-managed detections

See Panther-managed rules for AWS VPC in the panther-analysis GitHub repository.

Querying logs in Data Explorer

See example SQL queries, for use in Panther's Data Explorer, in VPC logs queries.

Supported AWS VPC log types

Panther supports AWS.VPCDns and AWS.VPCFlow.

AWS.VPCDns

DNS query logs represent the queries that VPC DNS resolvers forward to Route 53. For more information, see AWS's documentation on Resolver query log format.

AWS.VPCFlow

VPC Flow is a VPC NetFlow log, which is a layer 3 representation of network traffic in EC2.

Note that for Panther to properly ingest VPC NetFlow logs, they must come directly from S3, in CSV format with a header.

For more information, see AWS's documentation providing flow log record examples.

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