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zt_net_024 — NAT Gateway has no idle timeout configured for long-lived connections

Summary

Severity: Low · Pillar: Network · Chain role: ENABLER

Description

NAT Gateway with the default idle timeout (4 minutes) cuts long-running backend connections — common for database replication, message-bus consumers, and gRPC streams — triggering reconnect storms that can mask attack traffic inside normal reconnect noise. Explicit idle-timeout configuration (30-120 minutes for stable workloads) both stabilises connections and makes anomalous connection churn easier to spot.

Mapping

Framework Control / Reference
NIST 800-53 AU-2
NIST 800-207 Tenet 7 - The enterprise collects as much information as possible about the current state of assets
CIS Azure
MITRE ATT&CK Technique T1562
MITRE ATT&CK Tactic Defense Evasion
Zero-Trust Tenet Tenet 7
Framework tags nist-800-207, argus-zt

Source

Rule defined at policies/azure/zt/network/zt_net_024.rego.

View on GitHub