Create VPC flow logs

The Benchmark recommends enabling VPC Flow Logs for all VPCs in all regions. You can use the vpc service in the AWS CIS Service Catalog to create your VPCs. This service is configured for CIS compliance, and as such has VPC flow logs enabled. See the examples below:

infrastructure-live/root/us-east-1/prod/networking/vpc/terragrunt.hcl
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# MODULE PARAMETERS
# These are the variables we have to pass in to use the module specified in the terragrunt configuration above
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
inputs = {
  vpc_name         = "app"
  num_nat_gateways = 1
  cidr_block       = local.cidr_block
  kms_key_user_iam_arns = [
    "arn:aws:iam::${local.common_vars.locals.accounts[local.account_name]}:root",
  ]
  eks_cluster_names    = ["${local.name_prefix}-${local.account_name}"]
  tag_for_use_with_eks = true

  allow_administrative_remote_access_cidrs_public_subnets = merge(
    {
      for cidr in local.common_vars.locals.ip_allow_list
      : index(local.common_vars.locals.ip_allow_list, cidr) => cidr
    },
    { length(local.common_vars.locals.ip_allow_list) = local.cidr_block }
  )
}

In here you’ll still need to reference the locals configuration, and ensure that you’re setting the right source to the module, so add this to your terragrunt.hcl file too:

# Terragrunt will copy the Terraform configurations specified by the source parameter, along with any files in the
# working directory, into a temporary folder, and execute your Terraform commands in that folder. If you're iterating
# locally, you can use --terragrunt-source /path/to/local/checkout/of/module to override the source parameter to a
# local check out of the module for faster iteration.
terraform {
  # We're using a local file path here just so our automated tests run against the absolute latest code. However, when
  # using these modules in your code, you should use a Git URL with a ref attribute that pins you to a specific version:
  # source = "git::git@github.com:gruntwork-io/terraform-aws-cis-service-catalog.git//modules/networking/vpc?ref=v0.20.0"
  source = "${get_parent_terragrunt_dir()}/../../..//modules/networking/vpc"
}

# Include all settings from the root terragrunt.hcl file
include {
  path = find_in_parent_folders()
}

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Locals are named constants that are reusable within the configuration.
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
locals {
  # Automatically load common variables shared across all accounts
  common_vars = read_terragrunt_config(find_in_parent_folders("common.hcl"))

  # Extract the name prefix for easy access
  name_prefix = local.common_vars.locals.name_prefix

  # Automatically load account-level variables
  account_vars = read_terragrunt_config(find_in_parent_folders("account.hcl"))

  # Extract the account_name for easy access
  account_name = local.account_vars.locals.account_name

  # Automatically load region-level variables
  region_vars = read_terragrunt_config(find_in_parent_folders("region.hcl"))

  # Extract the region for easy access
  aws_region = local.region_vars.locals.aws_region

  cidr_block = local.common_vars.locals.app_vpc_cidrs[local.account_name]
}

To limit the number of flow logs, you may want to use the cloud-nuke defaults-aws command. It will remove the default VPC from all regions in an account, saving you the hassle of creating flow logs in each default VPC.

Maintaining compliance by following Monitoring best practices

The Monitoring section of the Benchmark centers on a collection of CloudWatch Logs Metric Filters. Gruntwork has simplified this section to a single module: the cloudwatch-logs-metric -filters wrapper module. It will create and configure all the CloudWatch Logs metric filters necessary for compliance with the Benchmark. Note that when you deploy the CIS account baseline modules, the CloudWatch Logs metric filters will be created and configured automatically, so that you don’t have to do anything special to enable the metric filters on the deployed CloudTrail configuration.

Note that you must have a subscriber on the SNS topic to be compliant. Refer to Subscribe to SNS topic for details on how to setup a subscriber to the SNS topics that are created.

Maintaining compliance by following Networking best practices

To ensure all the networking recommendations are satisfied, use the vpc (and/or vpc-mgmt) service from Gruntwork’s AWS CIS Service Catalog to create all your VPCs. These services are specifically configured for CIS compliance, and as such they don’t allow security groups to access ports 22 or 3389 from the world. In addition, our architecture has a least-privileges-based routing configuration by default.

To meet the 5.1 recommendation, you’ll need to provide values for the allow_administrative_remote_access_* variables when creating VPCs. These variables are used to create appropriate Network ACL Rules. For example, you might create a VPC using the vpc service from terraform-aws-cis-service-catalog:

infrastructure-live
└── root
    └── us-east-1
        └── prod
            └─ networking
                └─ vpc
                    └─ terragrunt.hcl

infrastructure-modules/networking/vpc/myvpc/main.tf
terraform { # We're using a local file path here just so our automated tests run against the absolute latest code. However, when
  # using these modules in your code, you should use a Git URL with a ref attribute that pins you to a specific version:
  # source = "git::git@github.com:gruntwork-io/terraform-aws-cis-service-catalog.git//modules/networking/vpc-mgmt?ref=v0.20.0"
  source = "${get_parent_terragrunt_dir()}/../../..//modules/networking/vpc-mgmt"
}

inputs = {
  vpc_name         = "mgmt"
  num_nat_gateways = 1
  cidr_block       = local.cidr_block
  kms_key_user_iam_arns = [
    "arn:aws:iam::${local.common_vars.locals.accounts[local.account_name]}:root",
  ]

  # Next, pass values for the allow_administrative_remote_access_* variables, thus creating the NACL rules under the hood
  allow_administrative_remote_access_cidrs_private_app_subnets         = { all_app_vpc_cidrs  = module.vpc.vpc_cidr_block }
  allow_administrative_remote_access_cidrs_private_persistence_subnets = { all_app_vpc_cidrs  = module.vpc.vpc_cidr_block }

  allow_administrative_remote_access_cidrs_public_subnets = merge(
    {
      for cidr in local.common_vars.locals.ip_allow_list
      : index(local.common_vars.locals.ip_allow_list, cidr) => cidr
    },
    { length(local.common_vars.locals.ip_allow_list) = local.cidr_block }
  )
}

Refer to the terraform-aws-cis-service-catalog repo for a more comprehensive example.

Finally, run the cloud-nuke defaults-aws command to remove all default security groups from all VPCs in all regions.

Create VPC flow logs

Maintaining compliance by following Monitoring best practices​

Maintaining compliance by following Networking best practices​

Maintaining compliance by following Monitoring best practices

Maintaining compliance by following Networking best practices