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Security Hub CSPM automation rule migration to Security Hub

17 December 2025 at 22:06

A new version of AWS Security Hub is now generally available with new capabilities to aggregate, correlate, and contextualize your security alerts across Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts. The prior version is now known as AWS Security Hub CSPM and will continue to be available as a unique service focused on cloud security posture management and finding aggregation.

One capability available in both services is automation rules. In both Security Hub and Security Hub CSPM, you can use automation rules to automatically update finding fields when the criteria they define are met. In Security Hub, automation rules can be used to send findings to third-party platforms for operational response. Many existing Security Hub CSPM users have automation rules for tasks such as elevating the severity of a finding because it affects a production resource or adding a comment to assist in remediation workflows. While both services offer similar automation rule functionality, rules aren’t synchronized across the two services. If you are an existing Security Hub CSPM customer looking to adopt the new Security Hub, you might be interested in migrating the automation rules that have already been built. This helps keep your automation rules processing close to where you’re reviewing findings. As of publication, this capability is included in the cost of the Security Hub essentials plan. For current pricing details, refer to the Security Hub pricing page.

This post provides a solution to automatically migrate automation rules from Security Hub CSPM to Security Hub, helping you maintain your security automation workflows while taking advantage of the new Security Hub features. If you aren’t currently using automation rules and want to get started, see Automation rules in Security Hub.

Automation rule migration challenge

Security Hub CSPM uses the AWS Security Finding Format (ASFF) as the schema for its findings. This schema is fundamental to how automation rules are applied to findings as they are generated. Automation rules begin by defining one or more criteria and then selecting one or more actions that will be applied when the specified criteria are met. Each criterion specifies an ASFF field, an operator (such as equals or contains), and a value. Actions then update one or more ASFF fields.

The new version of Security Hub uses the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF), a widely adopted open-source schema supported by AWS and partners in the cybersecurity industry. Security Hub automation rules structurally work the same way as Security Hub CSPM rules. However, the underlying schema change means existing automation rules require transformation.

The solution provided in this post automatically discovers Security Hub CSPM automation rules, transforms them into the OCSF schema, and creates an AWS CloudFormation template that you can use to deploy them to your AWS account running the new version of Security Hub. Because of inherent differences between the ASFF and OCSF schemas, some rules can’t be automatically migrated, while others might require manual review after migration.

The following table show the current mapping between ASFF fields supported as criteria and their corresponding OCSF fields. These mappings may change in future service releases. Fields marked as N/A can’t be migrated and will require special consideration when migrating automation rules. They need to be redesigned in the new Security Hub. The solution provided in this post is designed to skip migration of rules with one or more ASFF criteria that don’t map to an OCSF field but will identify those rules in a report for your review.

Rule criterion in ASFF Corresponding OCSF field
AwsAccountId cloud.account.uid
AwsAccountName  cloud.account.name
CompanyName  metadata.product.vendor_name 
ComplianceAssociatedStandardsId compliance.standards
ComplianceSecurityControlId  compliance.control 
ComplianceStatus  compliance.status 
Confidence  confidence_score
CreatedAt  finding_info.created_time 
Criticality  N/A
Description  finding_info.desc 
FirstObservedAt  finding_info.first_seen_time
GeneratorId  N/A
Id  finding_info.uid 
 LastObservedAt finding_info.last_seen_time 
 NoteText comment 
NoteUpdatedAt  N/A
NoteUpdatedBy  N/A
ProductArn  metadata.product.uid 
ProductName  metadata.product.name 
RecordState  activity_name 
RelatedFindingsId  N/A
RelatedFindingsProductArn  N/A
ResourceApplicationArn  N/A
ResourceApplicationName  N/A
ResourceDetailsOther  N/A
ResourceId  resources[x].uid 
ResourcePartition  resources[x].cloud_partition 
ResourceRegion  resources[x].region 
ResourceTags  resources[x].tags 
ResourceType  resources[x].type 
SeverityLabel  vendor_attributes.severity 
SourceUrl  finding_info.src_url 
Title  finding_info.title 
Type  finding_info.types 
UpdatedAt  finding_info.modified_time 
UserDefinedFields  N/A
VerificationState  N/A
WorkflowStatus  status 

The following table shows the ASFF fields that are supported as actions and their corresponding OCSF fields. Note that several action fields aren’t available in OCSF:

Rule action fields in ASFF Corresponding OCSF field
Confidence  N/A
Criticality  N/A
Note  Comment 
RelatedFindings  N/A
Severity  Severity 
Types  N/A
UserDefinedFields  N/A
VerificationState  N/A
Workflow Status  Status 

For Security Hub CSPM automation rules that include actions without OCSF equivalents, the solution is designed to migrate the rules but include only the supported actions. These rules will be designated as partially migrated in the rule description and the migration report. You can use this information to review and modify the rules before enabling them, helping to ensure that the new automation rules behave as expected.

Solution overview

This solution provides a set of Python scripts designed to assist with the migration of automation rules from Security Hub CSPM to the new Security Hub. Here’s how the migration process works:

  1. Begin migration: The solution provides an orchestration script that initiates three sub-scripts and manages passing the proper inputs to them.
  2. Discovery: The solution scans your Security Hub CSPM environment to identify and collect existing automation rules across specified AWS Regions.
  3. Analysis: Each rule is evaluated to determine if it can be fully migrated, partially migrated, or requires manual intervention based on ASFF to OCSF field mapping compatibility.
  4. Transformation: Compatible rules are automatically converted from the ASFF schema to the OCSF schema using predefined field mappings.
  5. Template creation: The solution generates a CloudFormation template containing the transformed rules, maintaining their original order and Regional context.
  6. Deployment: Review the generated template and deploy it to create the migrated rules in Security Hub, where they are created in a disabled state by default.
  7. Validate and enable rules: Review each migrated rule in the AWS Management Console for Security Hub to verify its criteria, actions, and preview your current matching findings if applicable. After confirming that the rules work as intended individually and as a sequence, enable them to resume your automation workflows.
Figure 1: Architecture diagram showing scripts and how they interact with AWS

Figure 1: Architecture diagram showing scripts and how they interact with AWS

The solution, shown in Figure 1, consists of four Python scripts that work together to migrate your automation rules:

  1. Orchestrator: Coordinates discovery, transformation, and generation along with reporting and logging
  2. Rule discovery: Identifies and extracts existing automation rules from Security Hub CSPM across the Regions you specify
  3. Schema transformation: Converts the rules from ASFF to OCSF format using the field mapping detailed earlier
  4. Template generation: Creates CloudFormation templates that you can use to deploy the migrate rules

The scripts use credentials configured using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) to discover existing Security Hub automation rules. For details on how to configure credentials using AWS CLI, see Setting up the AWS CLI.

Prerequisites

Before running the solution, ensure you have the following components and permissions in place.

  • Required software:
    • AWS CLI (latest version)
    • Python 3.12 or later
    • Python packages:
      • boto3 (latest version)
      • pyyaml (latest version)
  • Required permissions:
    For rule discovery and transformation:

    • securityhub:ListAutomationRules
    • securityhub:BatchGetAutomationRules
    • securityhub:GetFindingAggregator
    • securityhub:DescribeHub
    • securityhub:ListAutomationRulesV2

    For template deployment:

    • cloudformation:CreateStack
    • cloudformation:UpdateStack
    • cloudformation:DescribeStacks
    • cloudformation:CreateChangeSet
    • cloudformation:DescribeChangeSet
    • cloudformation:ExecuteChangeSet
    • cloudformation:GetTemplateSummary
    • securityhub:CreateAutomationRuleV2
    • securityhub:UpdateAutomationRuleV2
    • securityhub:DeleteAutomationRuleV2
    • securityhub:GetAutomationRuleV2
    • securityhub:TagResource
    • securityhub:ListTagsForResource

AWS account configuration

Security Hub supports a delegated administrator account model when used with AWS Organizations. This delegated administrator account centralizes the management of security findings and service configuration across your organization’s member accounts. Automation rules must be created in the delegated administrator account in the home Region, and in unlinked Regions. Member accounts can’t create their own automation rules.

We recommend using the same account as the delegated administrator for Security Hub CSPM and Security Hub to maintain consistent security management. Configure your AWS CLI with credentials for this delegated administrator account before running the migration solution (see Setting up the AWS CLI for more information).

While this solution is primarily designed for delegated administrator deployments, it also supports single-account Security Hub implementations.

Key migration concepts

Before proceeding with the migration of your automation rules from Security Hub CSPM to Security Hub, it’s important to understand several key concepts that affect how rules are migrated and deployed. These concepts influence the migration process and the resulting behavior of your rules. Understanding them will help you plan your migration strategy and validate the results effectively.

Default rule state

By default, migrated rules are created in a DISABLED state, meaning the actions will not be applied to findings as they are generated. The solution can optionally create rules in an ENABLED state, but this is not recommended. Instead, create the rules in a DISABLED state, review each rule, preview matching findings, and then move the rule to an ENABLED state when ready.

Unsupported fields

The migration report details any rules that can’t be migrated because they include one or more Security Hub CSPM criteria that aren’t supported by the new Security Hub. These cases occur because of the differences between the ASFF and OCSF schemas. These rules require special attention because they can’t be automatically replicated with equivalent behavior. This is particularly important if you have Security Hub CSPM rules that depend on priority order.

When rules have actions that aren’t supported, they will still be migrated if at least one action is supported. Rules with partially supported actions are flagged in the migration report and the new automation rule description and should be reviewed.

Home and linked Regions

Both Security Hub CSPM and Security Hub support a home Region that aggregates findings from linked Regions. However, their automation rules behave differently. Security Hub CSPM automation rules operate on a Regional basis. This means they only affect findings generated in the Region where they are created. Even if you use a home Region, Security Hub CSPM automation rules do not apply to the findings aggregated from linked Regions in the home Region. Security Hub supports automation rules defined in a home Region and applied to all linked Regions, and does not support the creation of automation rules in linked Regions. However, in Security Hub, unlinked Regions can still have their own automation rules that will affect only the findings generated in that Region. Unlinked Regions will need to have automation rules applied separately

The solution supports two deployment modes to handle these differences. The first mode, called Home Region, should be used for Security Hub deployments with a home Region enabled. This mode identifies Security Hub CSPM automation rules from specified Regions and then recreates them with an additional criteria to account for the Region the rule came from. Then, one CloudFormation template is generated that can be deployed in the home Region. The automation rules will still operate as intended because of the addition of the criteria for the original Region where it was created.

The second mode is called Region-by-Region. This mode is for users who don’t currently use a home Region. In this mode, the solution still discovers automation rules in the Regions specified but generates a unique CloudFormation template for each Region. The resulting templates can then be deployed one by one to the delegated administrator account for their corresponding Region. No additional criteria are added to the automation rule in this mode.

It is possible to use a home Region with Security Hub and link some Regions, but not all. If this is the case, run the Home Region mode for the home Region and all linked Regions. Then, re-run the solution in Region-by-Region mode for all unlinked Regions.

Rule order

Both Security Hub CSPM and Security Hub automation rules have an order in which they are evaluated. This can be important for certain situations where different automation rules might apply to the same findings or take actions on the same fields. This solution preserves the original order of your automation rules.

If there are existing Security Hub automation rules, the solution creates the new automation rules beginning after the existing rules. For example, if you have 3 Security Hub automation rules and are migrating 10 new rules, the solution will assign orders 4 through 13 to the new rules.

When using the Home Region mode, the order of automation rules for each Region is preserved and clustered together in the final order. For example, if a user with three Security Hub automation rules in three different Regions migrates the rules, they will be migrated sequentially. The solution will first migrate all rules from Region 1 in their original order, followed by all rules from Region 2 in their original order, and finally all rules from Region 3 in their original order.

Deploy and validate the migration

Now that you have the prerequisites in place and understand the basic concepts, you’re ready to deploy and validate the migration.

To deploy the migration:

1. Clone the Security Hub automation rules Migration Tool from the AWS samples GitHub repository:

git clone https://github.com/aws-samples/sample-SecurityHub-Automation-Rule-Migration.git

2. Run the scripts following the instructions of the README file, which will contain the most up-to-date implementation instructions. This will generate a CloudFormation template that will create the new Security Hub automation rules. Deploy the CloudFormation template using the AWS CLI or console. For more details, see the Create a stack from the CloudFormation console or the README file.

When deployment is complete, you can use the Security Hub console to review your migrated automation rules. Remember that rules are created in a DISABLED state by default. Review each rule’s criteria and actions carefully, checking that they match your intended automation workflow. You can also preview what existing findings would have matched each automation rule in the console.

To review and validate migrated rules:

1. Go to the Security Hub console and choose Automations from the navigation pane.

Figure 2: Security Hub Automations page

Figure 2: Security Hub Automations page

2. Select a rule and then choose Edit at the top of the page.

Figure 3: Security Hub automation rule details

Figure 3: Security Hub automation rule details

3. Choose Preview matching findings. It’s possible that no findings will be returned even if the automation rule is behaving as expected. This means only that there are currently no findings matching the rule criteria in Security Hub. In this case, you can still review the rule criteria.

Figure 4: Security Hub Edit automation rule page

Figure 4: Security Hub Edit automation rule page

4. After validating a rule’s configuration, you can enable it through the console from the rule editing page. You can also update the CloudFormation stack. If you didn’t need to change any criteria or actions of your automation rules, you can re-run the scripts with the optional —create-enabled flag to reproduce the CloudFormation template with all rules enabled and deploy it as an update to the existing stack.

Pay attention to any rules that have partially migrated actions, which will be noted in the Description of each rule. This means one or more actions from the original rule in Security Hub CSPM aren’t supported in Security Hub and the rule might behave differently than intended. The solution also produces a migration report that includes which rules were partially migrated and specifies which actions from the original rule could not be migrated. Review these rules carefully because they might behave differently than expected and need to be modified or recreated.

Figure 5: Review the descriptions of partially migrated automation rules

Figure 5: Review the descriptions of partially migrated automation rules

Conclusion

The new AWS Security Hub provides enhanced capabilities for aggregating, correlating, and contextualizing your security findings. While the schema change from ASFF to OCSF brings improved interoperability and integration options, it requires existing automation rules to be migrated. The solution provided in this post helps automate this migration process through discovering your existing rules, transforming them to the new schema, and generating CloudFormation templates that preserve rule order and Regional context.

After migrating your automation rules, start by reviewing the migration report to identify any rules that weren’t fully migrated. Pay special attention to rules marked as partially migrated, because these might behave differently than their original versions. We recommend testing each rule in a disabled state and validating that rules work together as expected—especially rules that operate on the same fields—before enabling them in your environment.

To learn more about Security Hub and its enhanced capabilities, see the Security Hub User Guide.
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Joe Wagner

Joe Wagner

Joe is a Senior Security Specialist Solutions Architect who focuses on AWS security services. He loves that cybersecurity is always changing and takes pride in helping his customers navigate it all. Outside of work, you’ll find him trying new hobbies, exploring local restaurants, and getting outside as much as he can.

Ahmed Adekunle

Ahmed Adekunle

Ahmed is a Security Specialist Solutions Architect focused on detection and response services at AWS. Before AWS, his background was in business process management and AWS tech consulting, helping customers use cloud technology to transform their business. Outside of work, Ahmed enjoys playing soccer, supporting less privileged activities, traveling, and eating spicy food, specifically African cuisine.

Salifu (Sal) Ceesay

Salifu (Sal) Ceesay

Sal is a Technical Account Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS) specializing in financial services. He partners with organizations to operationalize and optimize managed solutions across many use cases, with expertise in native incident detection and response services. Beyond his professional pursuits, Sal enjoys gardening, playing and watching soccer, traveling, and participating in various outdoor activities with his family.

Accelerate investigations with AWS Security Incident Response AI-powered capabilities

21 November 2025 at 19:47

If you’ve ever spent hours manually digging through AWS CloudTrail logs, checking AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions, and piecing together the timeline of a security event, you understand the time investment required for incident investigation. Today, we’re excited to announce the addition of AI-powered investigation capabilities to AWS Security Incident Response that automate this evidence gathering and analysis work.

AWS Security Incident Response helps you prepare for, respond to, and recover from security events faster and more effectively. The service combines automated security finding monitoring and triage, containment, and now AI-powered investigation capabilities with 24/7 direct access to the AWS Customer Incident Response Team (CIRT).

While investigating a suspicious API call or unusual network activity, scoping and validation require querying multiple data sources, correlating timestamps, identifying related events, and building a complete picture of what happened. Security operations center (SOC) analysts devote a significant amount of time to each investigation, with roughly half of that effort spent manually gathering and piecing together evidence from various tools and complex logs. This manual effort can delay your analysis and response.

AWS is introducing an investigative agent to Security Incident Response, changing this paradigm and adding layers of efficiency. The investigative agent helps you reduce the time required to validate and respond to potential security events. When a case for a security concern is created, either by you or proactively by Security Incident Response, the investigative agent asks clarifying questions to make sure it understands the full context of the potential security event. It then automatically gathers evidence from CloudTrail events, IAM configurations, and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance details and even analyzes cost usage patterns. Within minutes, it correlates the evidence, identifies patterns, and presents you with a clear summary.

How it works in practice

Before diving into an example, let’s paint a clear picture of where the investigative agent lives, how it’s accessed, and its purpose and function. The investigative agent is built directly into Security Incident Response and is automatically available when you create a case. Its purpose is to act as your first responder—gathering evidence, correlating data across AWS services, and building a comprehensive timeline of events so you can quickly move from detection to recovery.

For example: you discover that AWS credentials for an IAM user in your account were exposed in a public GitHub repository. You need to understand what actions were taken with those credentials and properly scope the potential security event, including lateral movement and reconnaissance operations. You need to identify persistence mechanisms that might have been created and determine the appropriate containment steps. To get started, you create a case in the Security Incident Response console and describe the situation.

Here’s where the agent’s approach differs from traditional automation: it asks clarifying questions first. When were the credentials first exposed? What’s the IAM user name? Have you already rotated the credentials? Which AWS account is affected?

This interactive step gathers the appropriate details and metadata before it starts gathering evidence. Specifically, you’re not stuck with generic results—the investigation is tailored to your specific concern.

After the agent has what it needs, it investigates. It looks up CloudTrail events to see what API calls were made using the compromised credentials, pulls IAM user and role details to check what permissions were granted, identifies new IAM users or roles that were created, checks EC2 instance information if compute resources were launched, and analyzes cost and usage patterns for unusual resource consumption. Instead of you querying each AWS service, the agent orchestrates this automatically.

Within minutes, you get a summary, as shown in the following figure. The investigation summary includes a high-level summary and critical findings, which include the credential exposure pattern, observed activity and the timeframe, affected resources, and limiting factors.

This response was generated using AWS Generative AI capabilities. You are responsible for evaluating any recommendations in your specific context and implementing appropriate oversight and safeguards. Learn more about AWS Responsible AI requirements.

Note: The preceding example is representative output. Exact formatting will vary depending on findings.

The investigation summary includes various tabs for detailed information, such as technical findings with an events timeline, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 2 – Security event timeline

Figure 2 – Security event timeline

When seconds count, this transparency is paramount to a quick, high-fidelity, and accurate response—especially if you need to escalate to the AWS CIRT, a dedicated group of AWS security experts, or explain your findings to leadership, creating a single lens for stakeholders to view the incident.

When the investigation is complete, you have a high-resolution picture of what happened and can make informed decisions about containment, eradication, and recovery. For the preceding exposed credentials scenario, you might need to:

  • Delete the compromised access keys
  • Remove the newly created IAM role
  • Terminate the unauthorized EC2 instances
  • Review and revert associated IAM policy changes
  • Check for additional access keys created for other users.

When you engage with the CIRT, they can provide additional guidance on containment strategies based on the evidence the agent gathered.

What this means for your security operations

The leaked credentials scenario shows what the agent can do for a single incident. But the bigger impact is on how you operate day-to-day:

  • You spend less time on evidence collection. The investigative agent automates the most time-consuming part of investigations—gathering and correlating evidence from multiple sources. Instead of spending an hour on manual log analysis, you can spend most of that time on making containment decisions and preventing recurrence.
  • You can investigate in plain language. The investigative agent uses natural language processing (NLP), which you can use to describe what you’re investigating in plain language, such as unusual API calls from IP address X or data access from terminated employee’s credentials, and the agent translates that into the technical queries needed. You don’t need to be an expert in AWS log formats or know the exact syntax for querying CloudTrail.
  • You get a foundation for high-fidelity and accurate investigations. The investigative agent handles the initial investigation—gathering evidence, identifying patterns, and providing a comprehensive summary. If your case requires deeper analysis or you need guidance on complex scenarios, you can engage with the AWS CIRT, who can immediately build on the work the agent has already done, speeding up their response time. They see the same evidence and timeline, so they can focus on advanced threat analysis and containment strategies rather than starting from scratch.

Getting started

If you already have Security Incident Response enabled, the AI-powered investigation capabilities are available now—no additional configuration needed. Create your next security case and the agent will start working automatically.

If you’re new to Security Incident Response, here’s how to set it up:

  1. Enable Security Incident Response through your AWS Organizations management account. This takes a few minutes through the AWS Management Console and provides coverage across your accounts.
  2. Create a case. Describe what you’re investigating; you can do this through the Security Incident Response console or an API, or set up automatic case creation from Amazon GuardDuty or AWS Security Hub alerts.
  3. Review the analysis. The agent presents its findings through the Security Incident Response console, or you can access them through your existing ticketing systems such as Jira or ServiceNow.

The investigative agent uses the AWS Support service-linked role to gather information from your AWS resources. This role is automatically created when you set up your AWS account and provides the necessary access for Support tools to query CloudTrail events, IAM configurations, EC2 details, and cost data. Actions taken by the agent are logged in CloudTrail for full auditability.

The investigative agent is included at no additional cost with Security Incident Response, which now offers metered pricing with a free tier covering your first 10,000 findings ingested per month. Beyond that, findings are billed at rates that decrease with volume. With this consumption-based approach, you can scale your security incident response capabilities as your needs grow.

How it fits with existing tools

Security Incident Response cases can be created by customers or proactively by the service. The investigative agent is automatically triggered when a new case is created, and cases can be managed through the console, API, or Amazon EventBridge integrations.

You can use EventBridge to build automated workflows that route security events from GuardDuty, Security Hub, and Security Incident Response itself to create cases and initiate response plans, enabling end-to-end detection-to-investigation pipelines. Before the investigative agent begins its work, the service’s auto-triage system monitors and filters security findings from GuardDuty and third-party security tools through Security Hub. It uses customer-specific information, such as known IP addresses and IAM entities, to filter findings based on expected behavior, reducing alert volume while escalating alerts that require immediate attention. This means the investigative agent focuses on alerts that actually need investigation.

Conclusion

In this post, I showed you how the new investigative agent in AWS Security Incident Response automates evidence gathering and analysis, reducing the time required to investigate security events from hours to minutes. The agent asks clarifying questions to understand your specific concern, automatically queries multiple AWS data sources, correlates evidence, and presents you with a comprehensive timeline and summary while maintaining full transparency and auditability.

With the addition of the investigative agent, Security Incident Response customers now get the speed and efficiency of AI-powered automation, backed by the expertise and oversight of AWS security experts when needed.

The AI-powered investigation capabilities are available today in all commercial AWS Regions where Security Incident Response operates. To learn more about pricing and features, or to get started, visit the AWS Security Incident Response product page.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Daniel Begimher

Daniel Begimher

Daniel is a Senior Security Engineer in Global Services Security, specializing in cloud security, application security, and incident response. He co-leads the Application Security focus area within the AWS Security and Compliance Technical Field Community, holds all AWS certifications, and authored Automated Security Helper (ASH), an open source code scanning tool.

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