Moving workloads to the cloud unlocks speed and flexibility, but it also introduces new security challenges. Traditional manual audits aren't enough to keep up with today's fast-changing environments.

That's where Amazon Inspector comes in. Inspector is an AWS-managed vulnerability management tool that automatically checks your cloud resources for weaknesses. Whether you're running EC2 servers, containers stored in Amazon ECR, or AWS Lambda functions, Inspector continuously scans them to highlight risks and suggest fixes before attackers can take advantage.

Core Capabilities of Amazon Inspector

Amazon Inspector offers several built-in features that make vulnerability detection efficient and reliable:
  • Automated Scanning: Continuously reviews EC2, Lambda, and ECR resources for known security flaws (CVEs)
  • Exposure Checks: Identifies whether workloads are unintentionally reachable from the internet
  • Risk-Based Prioritization: Organizes findings by severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low)
  • Always-On Monitoring: Runs in the background without needing manual triggers
  • Tight AWS Integration: Works hand-in-hand with services like Security Hub, EventBridge, and Systems Manager
  • SBOM Support: Generates a Software Bill of Materials, helping you track open-source dependencies in containers

Why Organizations Rely on Inspector

Amazon Inspector is more than just a scanning service—it's designed to support real-world business needs:
  • Strengthens security by detecting risks before they escalate.
  • Helps meet compliance frameworks such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and ISO.
  • Cost-friendly, since billing is based only on scanned resources.
  • Easily fits into CI/CD pipelines for automated checks.
  • Works across multi-account and multi-region setups.

Setting Up Amazon Inspector

Step 1: Enable Inspector

Head over to the AWS Console → Amazon Inspector and click Enable. Choose which accounts and regions you'd like to cover.

Step 2: Automatic Resource Discovery

Once activated, Inspector automatically scans your environment for supported workloads:
  • EC2 instances (via the Systems Manager Agent)
  • Amazon ECR container images
  • Lambda functions
  • This eliminates the need to manually register resources.

Step 3: Continuous Scanning

Inspector then begins scanning in the background. It automatically adjusts as you add, update, or remove workloads, ensuring assessments stay up to date without manual effort.

Step 4: Reviewing Findings

Detected issues appear in the Inspector dashboard, including:
  • Vulnerability details and CVE identifiers
  • Risk severity levels
  • Impacted resources
  • Suggested remediation steps

This helps you prioritize which vulnerabilities to fix first.

Step 5: Applying Fixes

Based on Inspector's guidance, you can:
  • Use Systems Manager Patch Manager to update EC2 instances.
  • Rebuild and push secure ECR container images.
  • Update dependencies or code in Lambda functions.
  • Inspector's actionable insights streamline the remediation process.

Step 6: Manual Remediation via Session Manager

In some cases, you might want to address issues directly. One approach is to connect to an EC2 instance through AWS Systems Manager Session Manager and manually apply the recommended patches or configuration updates. The screenshots below outline this workflow.

The view below shows the active Amazon Inspector findings for the instance, highlighting multiple high-severity package vulnerabilities. Each row lists the CVE ID, affected package, how long the issue has existed, and its current status so you can identify which updates are most urgent.

After selecting a specific CVE, the details pane provides the installed and fixed versions, along with clear remediation steps. Here it recommends running yum update kernel and yum update kernel-tools through Session Manager to patch the affected packages.

This page summarizes all findings by EC2 instance, making it easy to see which servers have the highest number of critical or high-severity vulnerabilities. From here you can drill down into any instance to start a Session Manager session for manual updates.

Benefits of Amazon Inspector

  • Provides real-time, actionable security insights.
  • Reduces dependency on time-consuming manual reviews.
  • Seamlessly fits into DevOps and security automation pipelines.
  • Maintains visibility across dynamic and evolving AWS workloads.

Conclusion

Securing cloud infrastructure requires constant monitoring, not just occasional check-ups. Amazon Inspector makes this possible by delivering ongoing vulnerability assessments, prioritizing findings, and guiding you through remediation.

Whether you're running traditional EC2 workloads, modern containers, or serverless applications, Inspector can be a critical layer in your security strategy.

Don't wait until a vulnerability is exploited—enable Amazon Inspector today and make continuous security part of your cloud foundation.

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