📋 GuardDuty & Threat Detection Cheat Sheet

Quick-reference for GuardDuty data sources, finding types, severity, and automated response patterns.

Data Sources

  • CloudTrail management events and S3 data events
  • VPC Flow Logs (not actual logs — internal analysis)
  • DNS logs (Route 53 Resolver queries)
  • EKS audit logs and runtime monitoring
  • Lambda network activity monitoring

Finding Categories

  • Recon: port scanning, API enumeration
  • UnauthorizedAccess: compromised credentials, unusual API calls
  • Trojan/Backdoor: malware communication, C2 connections
  • CryptoCurrency: mining activity
  • Impact: resource hijacking, data destruction

Severity & Response

  • High (7.0–8.9): immediate action needed
  • Medium (4.0–6.9): investigate and potentially remediate
  • Low (1.0–3.9): informational, may indicate early-stage attacks
  • Findings → EventBridge → Lambda/Step Functions for automation

Multi-Account

  • Administrator account: manages member accounts (delegated from Org)
  • Findings from all members visible in administrator account
  • Auto-enable for new accounts in Organization
  • Trusted IP lists: suppress findings from known IPs

Practice GuardDuty Questions

Put your knowledge to the test with practice questions.

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