Published: September 29, 2024
By Mya Schaefer (Senior Consultant, Berkshire Solutions LLC)

Below I've listed 12 utilities that can help you audit AWS or other cloud infrastructure. These tools range from security auditing, compliance checks, to performance monitoring and cost optimization:

1. AWS Trusted Advisor

  • Purpose: Provides real-time guidance to help you follow AWS best practices.
  • Key Features: Security checks, performance recommendations, cost optimization, and fault tolerance.
  • Best For: AWS users looking for internal tools to audit their infrastructure.

2. AWS CloudTrail

  • Purpose: Logs and monitors account activity across your AWS infrastructure.
  • Key Features: Records AWS API calls, tracks user actions, identifies unauthorized access attempts.
  • Best For: Tracking and auditing every action made within your AWS environment.

3. AWS Config

  • Purpose: Tracks AWS resource configurations and evaluates them against your custom rules.
  • Key Features: Provides a timeline of configuration changes and checks compliance against internal standards.
  • Best For: Continuous monitoring of configuration compliance.

4. Prowler

  • Purpose: Open-source security auditing tool for AWS.
  • Key Features: Performs AWS CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, checks security configurations, and audits across multiple services.
  • Best For: Quick security assessments for AWS environments.

5. ScoutSuite

  • Purpose: Multi-cloud security auditing tool.
  • Key Features: Performs security audits on AWS, Azure, GCP, and other cloud providers. Identifies misconfigurations and security weaknesses.
  • Best For: Organizations using multiple cloud providers.

6. CloudMapper

  • Purpose: Helps visualize and audit AWS environments.
  • Key Features: Generates diagrams of your AWS architecture, identifies security risks, and provides public-facing resource checks.
  • Best For: Teams looking for visual representation and audit tools for their AWS resources.

7. AWS Security Hub

  • Purpose: Centralizes security alerts and compliance status across AWS accounts.
  • Key Features: Continuous monitoring, threat detection, and compliance checks (e.g., CIS, PCI DSS).
  • Best For: Comprehensive security management and automation of security best practices.

8. CloudCheckr

  • Purpose: Offers security, compliance, and cost auditing for AWS, Azure, and GCP.
  • Key Features: Detailed security assessments, cost optimization, and compliance tracking.
  • Best For: Larger organizations managing complex multi-cloud environments.

9. Turbot

  • Purpose: Provides governance and automation for cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, and GCP.
  • Key Features: Continuous compliance, security auditing, and policy automation.
  • Best For: Enterprises needing automated compliance enforcement.

10. Cloud Custodian

  • Purpose: Open-source tool that allows you to manage your cloud resources by enforcing security, cost, and governance rules.
  • Key Features: Automates policy enforcement and remediation actions across AWS resources.
  • Best For: Those looking for a highly customizable tool to enforce policies.

11. ThreatStack

  • Purpose: Cloud security management platform that audits and monitors AWS and other cloud environments.
  • Key Features: Real-time intrusion detection, compliance monitoring, and workload security.
  • Best For: Security-conscious organizations looking for a more hands-on threat detection and auditing tool.

12. CloudHealth by VMware

  • Purpose: Cloud management platform offering security, cost optimization, and governance auditing.
  • Key Features: Security posture assessments, multi-cloud governance, and financial analysis for cloud environments.
  • Best For: Organizations that need a holistic view of their cloud performance, security, and cost efficiency.

These tools cover a broad range of security, compliance, performance, and cost optimization tasks for auditing your cloud infrastructure. Each one serves a slightly different purpose depending on the focus of the audit.

Cloud Auditing Tools for AWS and Other Cloud Infrastructure

In this section, we review 12 essential tools for auditing cloud environments, focusing on AWS and multi-cloud infrastructure. Each tool is evaluated based on its pricing, strengths (pros), and potential limitations (cons).

1. AWS Trusted Advisor

  • Price: Included in AWS Business and Enterprise Support plans.
    • Business Plan starts at $100/month or 3-10% of AWS usage.
  • Pros:
    • Provides personalized recommendations based on AWS best practices.
    • Offers real-time guidance on security, performance, and cost optimization.
  • Cons:
    • Full features are available only with paid AWS Support plans.
    • The basic version is limited in scope and functionality.

2. AWS CloudTrail

  • Price: Free for the last 90 days of event history. For advanced logging, it costs $2 per 100,000 events.

  • Pros:

    • Logs all AWS API calls, giving detailed insights for security and compliance audits.
    • Integrates deeply with AWS services, making it easy to track user activities.

  • Cons:

    • Cost increases significantly with high volumes of API calls.
    • Limited to the AWS environment, so no direct support for multi-cloud setups.

3. AWS Config

  • Price: $0.003 per configuration item recorded. Config rules cost $2 per active rule per month.

  • Pros:

    • Automatically tracks and monitors AWS resource configurations and compliance against custom rules.
    • Provides historical configuration change tracking.

  • Cons:

    • Costs can accumulate quickly for large environments with many resources.
    • Lacks native multi-cloud support.

4. Prowler (Open-source)

  • Price: Free (open-source tool).

  • Pros:

    • Provides extensive AWS CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmark checks.
    • Regularly updated for AWS security best practices.

  • Cons:

    • Limited to AWS (does not support multi-cloud).
    • Requires command-line expertise and manual setup.

5. ScoutSuite (Open-source)

  • Price: Free (open-source tool).

  • Pros:

    • Supports security audits for multiple cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, and GCP.
    • Quickly identifies misconfigurations and security vulnerabilities.

  • Cons:

    • No real-time monitoring or alerting capabilities.
    • Basic reporting compared to other tools with advanced dashboards.

6. CloudMapper (Open-source)

  • Price: Free (open-source tool).

  • Pros:

    • Provides a visual representation of AWS architecture, making it easy to spot security risks.
    • Identifies public-facing resources and misconfigurations in the infrastructure.

  • Cons:

    • AWS-specific (no support for other cloud providers).
    • Requires some technical expertise to set up and lacks automation for continuous auditing.

7. AWS Security Hub

  • Price: $0.0010 per check per account, per region.

  • Pros:

    • Centralized security monitoring and compliance tracking across multiple AWS accounts.
    • Integrates with AWS services like GuardDuty, Macie, and Inspector to provide a comprehensive security overview.

  • Cons:

    • Costs can grow with multiple accounts and regions.
    • Only covers AWS environments.

8. CloudCheckr

  • Price: Starts at around $500 per month, depending on the size of your cloud usage.

  • Pros:

    • Comprehensive tool for security auditing, compliance, and cost management.
    • Supports multi-cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), providing a unified view of cloud resources.

  • Cons:

    • Expensive for smaller organizations with limited cloud usage.
    • Complex configuration for smaller deployments with fewer resources.

9. Turbot

  • Price: Enterprise pricing (available on request, typically for large-scale organizations).

  • Pros:

    • Provides continuous governance, compliance, and security automation across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
    • Allows automation of policy enforcement and monitoring, reducing human error.

  • Cons:

    • Primarily geared towards large enterprises, making it too complex or expensive for smaller businesses.
    • Requires significant configuration and maintenance for full-scale deployment.

10. Cloud Custodian (Open-source)

  • Price: Free (open-source tool).

  • Pros:

    • Extremely customizable for policy enforcement and automation on AWS.
    • Automates resource management and security tasks, such as stopping unused instances or enforcing encryption.

  • Cons:

    • Requires in-depth technical knowledge to set up and configure.
    • Lacks a user-friendly interface for those unfamiliar with command-line tools.

11. ThreatStack

  • Price: Starts around $500 per month for small environments.

  • Pros:

    • Provides real-time threat detection and security monitoring across the full stack.
    • Continuous compliance checks and reporting on AWS security best practices.

  • Cons:

    • Pricing is high compared to other security tools, especially for smaller environments.
    • Primarily targeted at enterprises, which might make it overkill for smaller organizations.

12. CloudHealth by VMware

  • Price: Pricing typically starts at $400–$500 per month, depending on the scale of your cloud infrastructure.

  • Pros:

    • Comprehensive multi-cloud support for cost management, security auditing, and compliance monitoring.
    • Robust reporting and analytics for security, performance, and financial metrics.

  • Cons:

    • High cost for smaller businesses or teams with simple cloud setups.
    • Steep learning curve for configuring and managing the platform.

Conclusion

This review of 12 cloud auditing tools provides a variety of options, ranging from open-source solutions like Prowler and ScoutSuite to enterprise-grade tools like CloudCheckr and Turbot. Depending on your organization’s size, budget, and cloud infrastructure, some tools may offer more immediate value than others. For smaller teams, open-source tools may be sufficient, while larger enterprises may benefit from the advanced automation, governance, and monitoring features provided by commercial tools like ThreatStack and CloudHealth.

By choosing the right tools for your needs, you can ensure that your AWS or multi-cloud infrastructure remains secure, compliant, and well-optimized.

Primary Category
Cloud Services & Infrastructure
Sub-Domain
Cloud Security
Confidentiality
No