Capstone - Event-Driven Security Automation

Author: Damien Burks

Welcome to the Capstone Project of the Cloud Security Development section! This is where everything you’ve learned such as IAM, secrets management, APIs, event visibility, serverless automation, and IaC security, comes together into one powerful cloud-native pipeline.

In this capstone, you’ll build your own Event-Driven Security Automation Pipeline, a hands-on project that demonstrates how to integrate detection, response, and compliance enforcement into a single automated workflow.

Overview

The goal of this capstone is to design and implement a self-healing cloud automation system that detects, remediates, and audits security misconfigurations automatically. You’ll simulate what real-world cloud security engineers do: connect events, policies, and automation to create a continuously secure environment.

In short, this project shows how modern cloud teams build Security as Code that's scalable, auditable, and intelligent.

Architecture Breakdown

Your automation pipeline will include four key security layers:

1. Detection Layer – Uses cloud-native events to identify risky or noncompliant changes.
   Examples: Detect public storage buckets, IAM role modifications, or disabled logging. Some common tools you could/should use are: AWS CloudTrail, EventBridge, Azure Event Grid, or GCP Pub/Sub.

2. Remediation Layer – Executes secure automation in response. Build a serverless function (Lambda, Cloud Function, or Logic App) that automatically fixes, quarantines, or alerts on violations. Use least privilege IAM and secret injection from Vault or Secrets Manager.

3. Observability Layer – Tracks every action for audit and visibility.
   Send logs to CloudWatch, Log Analytics, or Stackdriver. Add alerts and dashboards to measure success, latency, and failed actions.

4. Governance Layer – Defines compliance and trust boundaries through Infrastructure as Code. Enforce security baselines with Terraform, OPA, or Tfsec and version everything for traceability.

You'll bring all of these layers together by completing the tasks below.

Capstone Tasks

Phase 1 – Foundation Setup

• Choose your preferred cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Create a monitored resource (for example, an S3 bucket or Storage Account).
• Enable audit logging and monitoring for all resource activity.

✅ Deliverable: A configured environment with event logging and monitoring enabled.

Phase 2 – Event Detection

• Create an event rule that captures security-relevant actions (for example, new public buckets, modified IAM roles).
• Route events to a notification system or directly to a function.
• Test to confirm events trigger consistently.

✅ Deliverable: Working event detection that triggers automation on defined security actions.

Phase 3 – Automated Remediation

• Build a serverless function that automatically responds to the event.
• Protect all credentials using a managed secrets service.
• Apply least privilege permissions to the function.
• Implement logging to track all actions taken.

✅ Deliverable: A functioning, secure serverless automation that remediates or alerts on violations.

Phase 4 – Observability and Reporting

• Forward all remediation logs to a central monitoring service.
• Add alerts for repeated or critical violations.
• Optionally, build a simple dashboard to visualize event trends.

✅ Deliverable: End-to-end observability with traceable metrics and logs.

Phase 5 – Policy as Code

• Write IaC templates for your system using Terraform or CloudFormation.
• Add OPA or Tfsec policies to enforce compliance before deployment.
• Test the policies that you've developed.

✅ Deliverable: A complete, versioned IaC setup that defines and enforces your entire automation system.

Deliverables Summarized

Deliverable	Description
IaC Templates	Terraform or CloudFormation templates that deploy your automation system.
Serverless Function	Event-driven function that performs remediation and logging.
Secrets Integration	Demonstration of secure secret retrieval using Vault or Secrets Manager.
Logging + Alerts	Configured monitoring with traceable events and alert triggers.
Documentation	A README explaining architecture, IAM design, and deployment steps.

important

Treat this project like a real-world system. Document your architecture, version your configs, and include diagrams in your README. When it’s complete, make it a portfolio project you can showcase on GitHub or LinkedIn.

Learning Outcomes

By completing this capstone, you’ll demonstrate your ability to:

• Automate event-driven detection and remediation in the cloud.
• Securely integrate secrets and IAM roles into automation workflows.
• Use APIs and SDKs to build security-aware serverless functions.
• Apply Infrastructure as Code and Policy as Code principles.
• Build a complete feedback loop with logging, monitoring, and alerting.
• Design scalable systems that respond and adapt to change in real time.

Stretch Goal: Continuous Compliance Engine

Push your automation further by integrating with a CSPM or vulnerability management tool such as Wiz, Security Hub, or Trivy.

Ideas to explore:

• Continuously ingest findings from these tools.
• Automate remediation for specific severity levels.
• Notify your team through Slack, Teams, or email for manual triage.

This turns your project into a Continuous Compliance Engine, which is the gold standard for modern cloud security operations.

Summary

This capstone ties together everything you’ve learned, from IAM fundamentals to IaC enforcement, into a single, cloud-native automation pipeline. It’s not just an exercise; it’s your proof of skill as a Cloud Security Engineer capable of building secure, automated systems at scale.

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Do us a huge favor, and make a post about your project on LinkedIn or any other social media applications with #DevSecBlueprint so that we can inspire others to build security into their pipelines too.