How to send Cloudwatch log details via email? - amazon-web-services

Question

The diagram below is what I am trying to achieve. In brief, to send CloudTrail logs to CloudWatch log group then scan it for certain events and finally send email alerts if there is an concerting event.
I am following this official documentation which also has a sample CloudFormation templates: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awscloudtrail/latest/userguide/use-cloudformation-template-to-create-cloudwatch-alarms.html
Using the CloudFormation templates above, I have been able to send the email alerts. However the alerts are very basic; it does not send key information like which user initiated this event, when did it occur etc.
Logically thinking AWS::Logs::MetricFilter should pass the value to AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm which would then send the information. I have looked at the documentation of both MetricFilter and Alarm services. Dimension comes closer to what I want but not yet able to read the information from logs.
I would have thought this is a common use case and there would be documentation. Am I missing something glaringly obvious here? Has anyone here solved this issue?
AWS::Logs::MetricFilter block:
"AuthorizationFailuresMetricFilter": {
"Type": "AWS::Logs::MetricFilter",
"Properties": {
"LogGroupName": { "Ref" : "LogGroupName" },
"FilterPattern": "{ ($.errorCode = \"*UnauthorizedOperation\") || ($.errorCode = \"AccessDenied*\") }",
"MetricTransformations": [
{
"MetricNamespace": "CloudTrailMetrics",
"MetricName": "AuthorizationFailureCount",
"MetricValue": "1"
}
]
}
},
AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm block
"AuthorizationFailuresAlarm": {
"Type": "AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm",
"Properties": {
"AlarmName" : "CloudTrailAuthorizationFailures",
"AlarmDescription" : "Alarms when an unauthorized API call is made.",
"AlarmActions" : [{ "Ref" : "AlarmNotificationTopic" }],
"Dimensions": [
{
"Name": "errorCode",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Name": "userIdentity",
"Value": ""
}
],
"MetricName" : "AuthorizationFailureCount",
"Namespace" : "CloudTrailMetrics",
"ComparisonOperator" : "GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold",
"EvaluationPeriods" : "1",
"Period" : "300",
"Statistic" : "Sum",
"Threshold" : "1"
}
},

Answer 1

This is not possible.
Amazon CloudWatch Logs will accept information from AWS CloudTrail and, upon finding messages that match a pre-defined filter, will increment a metric count.
An Amazon CloudWatch alarm can then be triggered when the metric exceeds a certain threshold. However, there is no direct connection between the incoming data that generated the metrics and the alarm that triggers based upon the threshold.
Think of it like a turnstile counting people who enter a subway. The turnstile counts the number of people, but does not retain information about the people who passed through. In the same way, the CloudWatch alarm counts the events but does not have any information about the events that were counted.