Amazon Web Services, which houses over 200 products, offers convenient security solutions for businesses of all sizes, including startups. Trusted by 31% of cloud users worldwide, Amazon’s products are scalable, accessible, and easy to start with, which is a perfect combination for startups.
This article will present a standoff between AWS GuardDuty and Inspector, Amazon’s chief security services.
What is Amazon GuardDuty?
Amazon Guard Duty is a security monitoring service.
It analyzes data from various AWS resources you are using, including Amazon CloudTrail, Amazon VPC Flow Logs, and Amazon S3 access logs.
In the standoff of AWS GuardDuty vs. Inspector, the first is the smarter one. GuardDuty uses machine learning to identify threats. Each time a finding is made, it provides a detailed report.
GuardDuty’s ability to continuously monitor accounts, workloads, and data impresses. The tool can analyze over a trillion events daily in Amazon Simple Storage Service or S3 (an object storage service for businesses of all sizes).
Amazon employs the best of its AI achievements to enhance accounts, workloads, and data functionality. For example, GuardDuty uses AI-powered anomaly detection, behavioral modeling, and threat intelligence. Other features include:
- Tailored remediation recommendations
GuardDuty provides automated analysis to identify threats and respond to them. It makes pinpoint recommendations to remediate threats. Tailored recommendations help minimize business disruption.
- Scalable threat detection
Threat detection can be used across all of your AWS accounts, saving time and minimizing manual effort. In the comparison of Amazon GuardDuty vs. Inspector, GuardDuty has broader coverage.
- Integration with AWS environment
Being part of the AWS family, GuardDuty integrates with other Amazon services flawlessly. The integration with Amazon Security Hub is especially noteworthy. GuardDuty sends findings to Security Hub where they get included in the analysis of your security posture.
What is Amazon Inspector?
Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service. It scans what things inside your products make them open to a breach.
It automatically assesses security in real time. It scans software and networks, and the findings are presented in detailed reports. This way, Amazon Inspector helps improve the security and compliance of any product deployed on AWS.
The features of the product are:
- Continuous scanning for vulnerabilities and network exposure
Amazon Inspector automatically discovers elements eligible for scanning and begins checking them without additional commands. In case a product changes, like a new package in an EC2 instance gets installed, Inspector reruns scanning. Each vulnerability detected receives a finding (comprehensive details about the issue) with remediation recipes. You have an option to fix the issue manually, and Inspector will close it right away.
- Integration with AWS EC2
Amazon Inspector gets easily connected to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2). This simplifies starting with the product and integrating it with your data.
- Accurate evaluation of vulnerabilities with the Amazon Inspector Risk score
Each of the detected vulnerabilities is assessed according to security metrics from the National Vulnerability Database, which provides severity scores for different system elements.
- Highly detailed dashboard
Amazon Inspector dashboard vitalizes findings in real time. This is really handy, as a user can see granular details of vulnerabilities and make faster solutions to them. You can easily see which resources have the most findings and which of the vulnerabilities affect the most instances.
- Customizable views to manage findings
Amazon offers an extensive system of filter check findings. This allows you to set up a customized view of the points and areas of most interest. For example, the tool allows you to view findings grouped by category or vulnerability type.
In terms of functionality, if we compare Inspector vs. GuardDuty, the first one is more focused on the inside of your AWS products, which we will discuss later.
Similarities between GuardDuty and AWS Inspector
To cut it sweet and simple, both Amazon Inspector and Amazon GuardDuty enhance your security. They both involve some level of automation. Yet, in the Amazon Inspector vs. GuardDuty comparison, GuardDuty brings automation to a new level as it incorporates machine learning. Other similarities include:
AWS integration
When comparing AWS GuardDuty vs. Inspector, both services integrate with other services in AWS through APIs, allowing users to enjoy easy connectivity.
Security enhancement
Amazon Inspector helps with application security assessments, while GuardDuty analyzes its environment for threats. Both services enhance security in this way.
AWS management console
Amazon’s huge service offering can be accessed through the AWS Management Console. Both Inspector and GuardDuty are also available through the management console and are, therefore, easy for Amazon users to utilize.
Continuous monitoring
Both tools focus on continuous security scans. They run automatically, which reduces the amount of manual labor and speeds up the process greatly.
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Key differences between GuardDuty and Inspector
Despite their mutual aim, the standoff between AWS GuardDuty and Inspector contains various differences. These products differ in purpose and in how they operate.
Purpose and functionality
As their names suggest Inspector and GuardDuty have a bit different focus. Inspector inspects your system for weak links. GuardDuty guards from external threats.
Operational differences
Amazon GuardDuty continuously monitors and processes data inside your AWS environment. Amazon Inspector, on the other hand, runs periodic assessments each time a new product gets uploaded.
Target areas
When compared AWS GuardDuty vs. Inspector, the latter has a narrower target area. For the time being, Amazon Inspector covers only Elastic Compute Cloud instances. On the other hand, GuardDuty will continuously monitor all of your AWS accounts, workloads, and data stored.
Integration and automation
Both products in the Amazon GuardDuty vs. Inspector standoff have a high level of automation.
GuardDuty continuously runs threat scans. You can also allow the product to make automated remediations each time when it is needed. Inspector also automatically checks your EC2 instances.
There’s, though, some difference in how they integrate with other AWS products. You can turn on and run GuardDuty with several clicks. Inspector, on the other hand, needs the installation of an SSM agent.
When to use GuardDuty?
If compare GuardDuty vs. Inspector chronologically, you can have Inspector set up at the start when you first deploy your applications. Then, you can install GuardDuty to alert you to threats.
GuardDuty is used to see what exactly happens when AWS services are running. You can also check what happens during a cyber threat event. Gathering checking data gives a better insight into how your system reacts to attacks.
When employing GuardDuty, you may enjoy cost-effectiveness. The price is proportional to workloads. Another important benefit is real-time visibility into what’s causing trouble. For instance, you get a detailed report each time there is a security attack on an app.
When to use Inspector?
As for the use cases, Inspector is handy to check if there are any weaknesses or security loopholes. It is also used to check if the security weaknesses remediated are still open.
In cases when periodic security checks are critical, like before a major app development, Inspector guarantees stability.
An important benefit of Inspector is compliance with regulations. It sticks to the best compliance practices and helps your service stand up.
AWS Inspector vs GuardDuty: cost comparison
In the comparison of AWS GuardDuty vs. Inspector, both services have a pay-as-you-go pricing model with slight differences.
AWS Inspector pricing is service-based. The price depends on the monthly workload. To be more specific, it depends on EC2 instance scans, CIS Benchmark assessment, ECR container image scans, and on-demand container image scanning.
This offer is quite cost-effective because the total cost depends on the workload, so you don’t have to pay for periods when the product is not used.
Pricing begins at $0.15 per instance assessment per month. The average one is $1.25. For example, if you have 10 EC2 instances scanned for 30 days of the month the price will be 1.25 per instance per month multiplied by 10. It will cost $12.5 a month. You can also benefit from a 15-day free trial period. The overall price will be custom and depending on your activity.
Guard Duty also offers a pay-as-you-go service. It scans AWS accounts, workloads, and data. So, the price depends on the number of service logs and events. For example, if you have a small AWS environment, you can expect to pay around $100 per month for Guard Duty. With higher workloads, the price gets to $1000 or more.
In the comparison of AWS Inspector vs. GuardDuty, the latter differs in the way of foundational pricing. It has a mandatory default plan.
As you log in for the first time, GuardDuty threat detection coverage is enabled automatically. Apart from that, any plan can be switched on and off depending on the needs. The service also has a 30-day free trial period.
So, a customer customizes the price based on the service plans. Yet, if some of the services inside the payment plan aren’t covered, their cost is automatically excluded from the ledger.
Conclusion
As we saw in the AWS Inspector vs. AWS GuardDuty comparison, GuardDuty is designed to protect your whole AWS account from external threats. Inspector, on the other hand, is made for vulnerability management within EC2 instances. Using both of these services will be perfect.
With GuardDuty it is important to decide if the data stored across all your AWS deserves a specific level of security. For example, sensitive data, if leaked, may cause a huge financial loss, so paying for GuardDuty is definitely worth it.
To have the best of both services, it is necessary to test AWS GuardDuty vs. Inspector in real life. As these products and services have free trials in their payment offer, it is a good idea to use them. As you consider building a security strategy for the long term, it will be wise to get expert consultations. This will be especially critical for assessing budgets and benefits for the long term.
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