Amazon Inspector Classic Amazon Inspector
Automated vulnerability management service that continually discovers and scans Amazon EC2 instances, container images in Amazon ECR, and AWS Lambda functions for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure.
Naming timeline
- Amazon Inspector (later renamed Amazon Inspector Classic)
Launched as an agent-based security assessment service using manual assessment targets, templates, and scheduled runs on the inspector API namespace.
- Amazon Inspector (v2) & Amazon Inspector ClassicCurrent name
Launched the re-architected Amazon Inspector on the inspector2 API namespace with continual automated scanning across EC2, Amazon ECR, and AWS Lambda, while designating the legacy v1 service as Amazon Inspector Classic.
What replaced Amazon Inspector Classic?
Amazon Inspector Classic has been superseded by Amazon Inspector, with the latest change on 29 November 2021 (AWS re:Invent 2021 Re-Architecture). Automated vulnerability management service that continually discovers and scans Amazon EC2 instances, container images in Amazon ECR, and AWS Lambda functions for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. The underlying legacy API or CLI surface is deprecated, so a technical migration is required.
Also known as
- Amazon Inspector v2
- Inspector2
Technical identifiers
Legacy identifiers deprecated. The underlying API or CLI surface for the legacy name is officially deprecated, so this change requires a technical migration rather than a label update.
| AWS Service APIs / SDKs | inspector2 inspector |
|---|---|
| AWS CLI Commands | aws inspector2 aws inspector |
| IAM Actions & Policies | inspector2:* inspector:* |
| Terraform Resources (aws_*) | aws_inspector2_enabler aws_inspector2_organization_configuration aws_inspector2_delegated_admin_account aws_inspector2_member_association aws_inspector_assessment_target |
The legacy Amazon Inspector Classic v1 API/CLI/Terraform namespace (inspector / aws_inspector_*) was superseded by the inspector2 namespace (aws inspector2 / inspector2:* / aws_inspector2_*).
Notes & disambiguation
- At AWS re:Invent 2021 (November 29, 2021), AWS launched a re-architected version of Amazon Inspector featuring continual, automated vulnerability scanning via AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM) and agentless scanning, renaming the original 2015/2016 scheduled assessment service to Amazon Inspector Classic.
- The redesigned Amazon Inspector operates on a new API, CLI, IAM, and Terraform namespace (inspector2, aws inspector2, inspector2:*, aws_inspector2_*), replacing the legacy Amazon Inspector Classic namespace (inspector, aws inspector, inspector:*, aws_inspector_*).
- Integrates natively with AWS Organizations for multi-account delegated administration, Amazon EventBridge, and AWS Security Hub.
- The redesigned Amazon Inspector operates on a new API, CLI, IAM, and Terraform namespace (inspector2, aws inspector2, inspector2:*, aws_inspector2_*), replacing the legacy Amazon Inspector Classic namespace (inspector, aws inspector, inspector:*, aws_inspector_*), which reached full shutdown on May 20, 2026.
Sources & official documentation
Catalog last updated . Spotted an error? Suggest an edit