AWS has quietly rolled out a useful update to the EC2 Security Groups console, you can now see which resources are associated with a security group directly from the SG details page.
What's New?
There's a new "Related resources" tab that scans your AWS resources and displays which ones are using that specific security group. In the example above, it found 2 resources (an ENI and an EC2 instance) linked to this jump-box-sg security group out of 69 total resources scanned.
Why This Matters
If you've ever tried to delete or modify a security group and wondered "what's actually using this?" this feature is for you. Previously, you'd need to:
- Run CLI commands with filters
- Search through multiple services manually
- Use third-party tools or scripts
Now it's one click away.
Use Cases
Auditing: Quickly identify orphaned or over-permissive security groups
Impact analysis: Know exactly what you'll affect before modifying rules
Cleanup: Confidently delete unused security groups
Compliance: Document which resources share network access policies
Small quality-of-life improvements like this make a real difference in day-to-day infrastructure management.
Top comments (2)
Great job!
nice post