How to Find AWS API Gateways Without WAF ACLs

Access control lists (ACLs) reduce the attack surface and minimize the risk of service abuse for internet-reachable services.

info

This security check is part of the CIS Amazon Web Services Benchmarks and is rated severity medium.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you have already installed and configured Fix Inventory to collect your AWS resources.

Directions

1. Execute the following search command in Fix Inventory Shell:

   > search is(aws_apigateway_stage) and stage_web_acl_arn==null
   ​kind=aws_apigateway_stage, ..., region=fixinventory-poweruser
   ​kind=aws_apigateway_stage, ..., account=poweruser-team

2. Pipe the search command into the dump command:

   > search is(aws_apigateway_stage) and stage_web_acl_arn==null | dump
   ​reported:
   ​  id: /aws/apigateway/123
   ​  name: some-name
   ​  ctime: '2022-12-05T22:53:14Z'
   ​  kind: aws_apigateway_stage
   ​  age: 2mo28d

   The command output will list the details of all non-compliant aws_apigateway_stage resources.

Remediation

Use AWS WAF to protect your API Gateway API from common web exploits. SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks can affect API availability and performance, compromise security, or consume excessive resources.

note

Please refer to the AWS API Gateway documentation for details.

Further Reading

• Search
• Command-Line Interface
• aws_apigateway_stage Resource Data Model

External Links

• CIS Amazon Web Services Benchmarks
• AWS Documentation