Benchmark: Disallow Instances for AWS Audit Manager Control Tower Guardrails

AWS Audit Manager is a valuable tool for ensuring security and compliance within your AWS infrastructure. It allows for assessment, management, and reporting of controls in your AWS environment. To enhance the utilization of AWS Audit Manager, it is essential to understand how it integrates with AWS Control Tower Guardrails.

AWS Control Tower aids in establishing a well-architected multi-account AWS environment by offering a selection of predefined guardrails. These guardrails consist of rules and policies designed to enforce best practices and compliance standards across AWS accounts. By default, AWS Control Tower activates all guardrails to uphold a secure and compliant environment.

Specific guardrails may need to be exempted from assessment by AWS Audit Manager. This is where the "Disallow Instances for AWS Audit Manager Control Tower Guardrails" benchmark becomes relevant. This benchmark identifies instances that should not undergo evaluation by Audit Manager against Control Tower guardrails.

Excluding certain instances from assessment affords greater control over the evaluation process, enabling focused auditing on instances that require scrutiny. This targeted approach aids in efficient prioritization of resources and efforts.

To implement the exclusion benchmark, a structured approach is required. Initially, pinpoint the instances earmarked for exclusion based on defined criteria such as instance purpose or criticality.

Subsequently, adjust the AWS Control Tower lifecycle event to direct Audit Manager not to evaluate these identified instances. This adjustment involves updating the AWS Config rule associated with the Control Tower lifecycle event. By customizing rule parameters, filters can be set up to exclude the marked instances.

Upon updating the rule, Audit Manager ceases assessment of the excluded instances against Control Tower guardrails. Notably, these instances will still be subject to other controls not specific to Control Tower.

By disallowing certain instances for Audit Manager's assessment against Control Tower guardrails, the evaluation process is refined, streamlining resource allocation and minimizing unnecessary overhead. This selective approach allows for concentrated attention on critical aspects while upholding compliance and security standards across AWS accounts.

In conclusion, the "Disallow Instances for AWS Audit Manager Control Tower Guardrails" benchmark offers flexibility in excluding specific instances from Audit Manager assessments against Control Tower guardrails. Implementation of this benchmark empowers efficient resource management, prioritization of audits, and upkeep of a secure and compliant AWS environment.