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Setting Up OSSEC to Send Alerts to CloudWatch

Host-based intrusion detection systems provide an added layer of network and file security and monitoring to virtual (and physical!) servers, on the cloud or otherwise. But when you're on the cloud, you'll generally want those services to integrate with your cloud-based monitoring platform. In this hands-on lab, we work with OSSEC and AWS by setting up OSSEC on an existing server, configuring it, and ensuring it is sending logs to CloudWatch.

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Labs

Path Info

Level
Clock icon Intermediate
Duration
Clock icon 45m
Last updated
Clock icon Aug 28, 2025

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Create IAM Policy and Role

    Create a policy and role that gives the EC2 instance the ability to create log groups and streams, add log events, and view a log stream in CloudWatch. Assign the role to the existing EC2 instance.

  2. Challenge

    Install and Configure OSSEC

    Install OSSEC locally to the provided Amazon Linux 2 EC2 instance.

  3. Challenge

    Set Up CloudWatch Agent

    Install the CloudWatch agent on the server and ensure it's configured to send OSSEC alerts to CloudWatch.

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