Use LookupEvents with an AWS SDK or CLI

// Routine which looks up events captured by AWS CloudTrail.
/*!
  \param clientConfig: Aws client configuration.
  \return bool: Function succeeded.
*/
bool AwsDoc::CloudTrail::lookupEvents(
        const Aws::Client::ClientConfiguration &clientConfig) {
    Aws::CloudTrail::CloudTrailClient cloudtrail(clientConfig);

    Aws::String nextToken; // Used for pagination.
    Aws::Vector<Aws::CloudTrail::Model::Event> allEvents;

    Aws::CloudTrail::Model::LookupEventsRequest request;

    size_t count = 0;
    do {
        if (!nextToken.empty()) {
            request.SetNextToken(nextToken);
        }

        Aws::CloudTrail::Model::LookupEventsOutcome outcome = cloudtrail.LookupEvents(
                request);
        if (outcome.IsSuccess()) {
            const Aws::Vector<Aws::CloudTrail::Model::Event> &events = outcome.GetResult().GetEvents();
            count += events.size();
            allEvents.insert(allEvents.end(), events.begin(), events.end());
            nextToken = outcome.GetResult().GetNextToken();
        }
        else {
            std::cerr << "Error: " << outcome.GetError().GetMessage() << std::endl;
            return false;
        }
    } while (!nextToken.empty() && count <= 50); // Limit to 50 events.

    std::cout << "Found " << allEvents.size() << " event(s)." << std::endl;

    for (auto &event: allEvents) {
        std::cout << "Event name: " << event.GetEventName() << std::endl;
        std::cout << "Event source: " << event.GetEventSource() << std::endl;
        std::cout << "Event id: " << event.GetEventId() << std::endl;
        std::cout << "Resources: " << std::endl;
        for (auto &resource: event.GetResources()) {
            std::cout << "  " << resource.GetResourceName() << std::endl;
        }
    }

    return true;
}

To look up events for a trail

The following lookup-events command looks up API activity events by the attribute EventName:

aws cloudtrail lookup-events --lookup-attributes AttributeKey=EventName,AttributeValue=ConsoleLogin

Output:

{
  "Events": [
     {
         "EventId": "654ccbc0-ba0d-486a-9076-dbf7274677a7",
         "Username": "my-session-name",
         "EventTime": "2021-11-18T09:41:02-08:00",
         "CloudTrailEvent": "{\"eventVersion\":\"1.02\",\"userIdentity\":{\"type\":\"AssumedRole\",\"principalId\":\"AROAJIKPFTA72SWU4L7T4:my-session-name\",\"arn\":\"arn:aws:sts::123456789012:assumed-role/my-role/my-session-name\",\"accountId\":\"123456789012\",\"sessionContext\":{\"attributes\":{\"mfaAuthenticated\":\"false\",\"creationDate\":\"2016-01-26T21:42:12Z\"},\"sessionIssuer\":{\"type\":\"Role\",\"principalId\":\"AROAJIKPFTA72SWU4L7T4\",\"arn\":\"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/my-role\",\"accountId\":\"123456789012\",\"userName\":\"my-role\"}}},\"eventTime\":\"2016-01-26T21:42:12Z\",\"eventSource\":\"signin.amazonaws.com\",\"eventName\":\"ConsoleLogin\",\"awsRegion\":\"us-east-1\",\"sourceIPAddress\":\"72.21.198.70\",\"userAgent\":\"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/47.0.2526.111 Safari/537.36\",\"requestParameters\":null,\"responseElements\":{\"ConsoleLogin\":\"Success\"},\"additionalEventData\":{\"MobileVersion\":\"No\",\"MFAUsed\":\"No\"},\"eventID\":\"654ccbc0-ba0d-486a-9076-dbf7274677a7\",\"eventType\":\"AwsConsoleSignIn\",\"recipientAccountId\":\"123456789012\"}",
         "EventName": "ConsoleLogin",
         "Resources": []
     }
  ]
}

Example 1: Returns all events that have occurred over the last seven days. The cmdlet by default automatically makes multiple calls to deliver all events, exiting when the service indicates no further data is available.

Find-CTEvent

Example 2: Returns all events that have occurred over the last seven days specifying a region that is not the current shell default.

Find-CTEvent -Region eu-central-1

Example 3: Returns all events that are associated with the RunInstances API call.

Find-CTEvent -LookupAttribute @{ AttributeKey="EventName"; AttributeValue="RunInstances" }

Example 4: Returns the first 5 available events.

Find-CTEvent -MaxResult 5

require 'aws-sdk-cloudtrail' # v2: require 'aws-sdk'

# @param [Object] client
def lookup_events_example(client)
  resp = client.lookup_events
  puts "Found #{resp.events.count} events:"
  resp.events.each do |e|
    puts "Event name:   #{e.event_name}"
    puts "Event ID:     #{e.event_id}"
    puts "Event time:   #{e.event_time}"
    puts 'Resources:'

    e.resources.each do |r|
      puts "  Name:       #{r.resource_name}"
      puts "  Type:       #{r.resource_type}"
      puts ''
    end
  end
end