Implementing AWS Config Rules for Compliance

When to Use

• When establishing continuous compliance monitoring for AWS resources against regulatory standards
• When implementing automated detection and remediation of configuration drift
• When building a compliance dashboard across multiple AWS accounts using AWS Organizations
• When audit teams require evidence of continuous compliance rather than point-in-time assessments
• When deploying guardrails that detect non-compliant resources within minutes of creation

Do not use for real-time threat detection (use GuardDuty), for application vulnerability scanning (use Inspector), or for one-time compliance assessments (use Prowler for faster ad-hoc audits).

Prerequisites

• AWS Config recording enabled in all target accounts and regions
• IAM role with config:*, ssm:*, and lambda:* permissions for rule management
• AWS Organizations with delegated administrator for Config aggregation
• S3 bucket for Config delivery channel and SNS topic for notifications
• CloudFormation StackSets or Terraform for multi-account rule deployment

Workflow

Step 1: Enable AWS Config Recording

Set up the Config recorder and delivery channel in each target account.

# Create S3 bucket for Config data
aws s3api create-bucket \
  --bucket config-compliance-data-ACCOUNT_ID \
  --region us-east-1

# Create Config service role
aws iam create-service-linked-role --aws-service-name config.amazonaws.com

# Start the Config recorder
aws configservice put-configuration-recorder \
  --configuration-recorder name=default,roleARN=arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT:role/aws-service-role/config.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForConfig \
  --recording-group allSupported=true,includeGlobalResourceTypes=true

# Set up delivery channel
aws configservice put-delivery-channel \
  --delivery-channel '{
    "name": "default",
    "s3BucketName": "config-compliance-data-ACCOUNT_ID",
    "snsTopicARN": "arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:ACCOUNT:config-notifications",
    "configSnapshotDeliveryProperties": {"deliveryFrequency": "TwentyFour_Hours"}
  }'

# Start recording
aws configservice start-configuration-recorder --configuration-recorder-name default

Step 2: Deploy Managed Config Rules for CIS Compliance

Enable AWS-managed Config rules that map to CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark controls.

# S3 bucket security rules
aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "s3-bucket-public-read-prohibited",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "S3_BUCKET_PUBLIC_READ_PROHIBITED"}
}'

aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "s3-bucket-server-side-encryption-enabled",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "S3_BUCKET_SERVER_SIDE_ENCRYPTION_ENABLED"}
}'

aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "s3-bucket-ssl-requests-only",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "S3_BUCKET_SSL_REQUESTS_ONLY"}
}'

# IAM security rules
aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "iam-root-access-key-check",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "IAM_ROOT_ACCESS_KEY_CHECK"}
}'

aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "mfa-enabled-for-iam-console-access",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "MFA_ENABLED_FOR_IAM_CONSOLE_ACCESS"}
}'

aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "iam-password-policy",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "IAM_PASSWORD_POLICY"},
  "InputParameters": "{\"RequireUppercaseCharacters\":\"true\",\"RequireLowercaseCharacters\":\"true\",\"RequireSymbols\":\"true\",\"RequireNumbers\":\"true\",\"MinimumPasswordLength\":\"14\"}"
}'

# Network security rules
aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "restricted-ssh",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "INCOMING_SSH_DISABLED"}
}'

aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "vpc-flow-logs-enabled",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "VPC_FLOW_LOGS_ENABLED"}
}'

# Encryption rules
aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "rds-storage-encrypted",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "RDS_STORAGE_ENCRYPTED"}
}'

aws configservice put-config-rule --config-rule '{
  "ConfigRuleName": "encrypted-volumes",
  "Source": {"Owner": "AWS", "SourceIdentifier": "ENCRYPTED_VOLUMES"}
}'

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