Secure Your Cloud Workloads with Amazon Inspector: Everything You Need to Know

Introduction

As cloud infrastructure becomes increasingly complex and vital to business operations, ensuring security is non-negotiable. Enter Amazon Inspector, an automated vulnerability management service that helps you continually monitor the security posture of your AWS workloads. From identifying software vulnerabilities to detecting unintended network exposure, Amazon Inspector offers deep, automated insights, ensuring your infrastructure remains secure and compliant.

In this guide, we’ll take you through everything you need to know to get started with and maximize the value of Amazon Inspector.

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What is Amazon Inspector?

Amazon Inspector is a fully managed security assessment service provided by AWS that helps identify vulnerabilities and deviations from security best practices. It automatically scans your Amazon EC2 instances, container images in Amazon ECR, and Lambda functions, offering detailed findings with recommended remediations.

Key Features

• Automated scans for vulnerabilities (CVEs) and network exposure
  
  

• Integration with AWS Systems Manager for agentless assessments
  
  

• Real-time vulnerability management for EC2 and ECR resources
  
  

• Context-aware prioritization based on Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)
  
  

• Centralized dashboard with Amazon Security Hub integration
  
  

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How Amazon Inspector Works

1. Enable Inspector: Activating Amazon Inspector is a one-click process from the AWS console.
   
   

2. Resource Inventory Collection: Inspector automatically discovers supported resources across your AWS environment.
   
   

3. Scanning: Performs continuous vulnerability scans on EC2, ECR images, and Lambda functions.
   
   

4. Finding Aggregation: Detected issues are categorized by severity and exposure level.
   
   

5. Remediation Guidance: Detailed insights with contextual remediation steps help you act quickly.
   
   

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Supported Resource Types

Resource Type	Assessment Type
EC2 Instances	Network reachability, CVEs
ECR Images	CVEs, container misconfigurations
Lambda Functions	CVE-based scanning of layers and dependencies

Amazon Inspector uses the Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) to collect EC2 instance data. For container images in ECR, scans are triggered automatically or periodically on push events.

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Benefits of Using Amazon Inspector

1. Continuous and Automated

No need to trigger scans manually—Inspector continuously monitors your environment for known vulnerabilities.

2. Prioritized Findings

Findings are ranked based on the CVSS score, exploitability, and environmental context, helping you first fix the most critical issues.

3. Seamless Integration

The Inspector integrates well with:

• AWS Organizations
  
  

• AWS Security Hub
  
  

• Amazon EventBridge for custom workflows
  
  

• AWS Lambda for automated remediation
  
  

4. Scalable and Agentless

No agents are needed for containers and Lambda functions. For EC2, no additional setup is required if Systems Manager is configured.

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Best Practices

• Enable Inspector across all accounts using AWS Organizations for centralized security management.
  
  

• Use Security Hub to correlate Inspector findings with other AWS security services like GuardDuty and Macie.
  
  

• Set up EventBridge Rules for automated remediation using Lambda functions.
  
  

• Regularly review Inspector scan coverage reports to ensure all relevant assets are included.
  
  

• Incorporate Amazon Inspector into your CI/CD pipeline to scan ECR images before production deployment.
  
  

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Pricing

Amazon Inspector pricing is based on:

• Number of EC2 instances scanned
  
  

• Number of container image scans per month
  
  

• Number of Lambda function scans
  
  

It's a pay-as-you-go model with tiered pricing, and the first 15 days after activation are typically free for evaluation purposes.

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Getting Started

1. Open the Amazon Inspector Console.
   
   

2. Click Enable to activate the service.
   
   

3. Review and configure scan settings, including tagging and account coverage.
   
   

4. Monitor findings in the Findings dashboard or via Security Hub.
   
   

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Conclusion

Amazon Inspector empowers organizations to proactively manage vulnerabilities, reduce exposure, and strengthen their overall security posture in the cloud. Its automation capabilities and deep integration within the AWS ecosystem make it a critical tool for every DevSecOps team.

Whether running a few EC2 instances or managing thousands of microservices with Lambda and containers, Amazon Inspector helps secure it all—continuously, automatically, and at scale.