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Cloud Enrichment — AWS

note

Enriched fields produced by this configuration are applied and available in the Network Conversations Module output.

When AWS VPC Flow Log ingestion is configured, NFO enriches flows with EC2 instance names, VPC and subnet identifiers, public IP addresses, and cloud region and service data. The EDFN agent uses the same AWS credentials configured for ingestion to retrieve this metadata. No additional access configuration is required.

Prerequisite: AWS VPC Flow Log ingestion must be configured first. See AWS VPC Flow Logs Configuration for setup instructions.


Enriched Fields

The table below lists the enrichment fields added by NFO to AWS VPC flow records. Fields marked as Built-in are populated from the Cloud Service & Region lookup and require no ingestion setup.

FieldSourceDescription
src_cloud_serviceBuilt-inAWS service associated with the source IP (e.g. EC2, S3, CLOUDFRONT)
dest_cloud_serviceBuilt-inAWS service associated with the destination IP
src_cloud_regionBuilt-inAWS region of the source IP (e.g. us-east-1)
dest_cloud_regionBuilt-inAWS region of the destination IP
src_inst_nameIngestionName of the source EC2 instance
dest_inst_nameIngestionName of the destination EC2 instance
src_ip_pubIngestionPublic IPv4 address of the source EC2 instance
dest_ip_pubIngestionPublic IPv4 address of the destination EC2 instance
vpc_idIngestionVPC ID of the flow
subnet_idIngestionSubnet ID of the network interface
account_idIngestionAWS account ID
interface_idIngestionNetwork interface ID (ENI)

How Enrichment Is Updated

The EDFN agent periodically queries the AWS EC2 API to refresh its lookup of instance names, VPC names, and subnet identifiers. The refresh interval is controlled by the Cron Schedule setting in the EDFN Agent configuration for AWS VPC Flow Logs.

If instance metadata is not yet available when a flow is processed (e.g. immediately after a new instance starts), the instance name fields will be absent from that flow record and populated on the next refresh cycle.


Credential Requirements

The AWS IAM policy used for ingestion already includes the permissions needed for enrichment:

  • ec2:DescribeInstances: resolves instance names and tags
  • ec2:DescribeVpcs: resolves VPC names
  • ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces: resolves interface-to-instance mapping
  • ec2:DescribeNatGateways, ec2:DescribeVpcEndpoints: resolves service endpoint context

No additional IAM permissions are required beyond what the standard ingestion policy grants.


Reference Documentation