We’re excited to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has completed the 2023 South Korea Cloud Service Providers (CSP) Safety Assessment Program, also known as the Regulation on Supervision on Electronic Financial Transactions (RSEFT) Audit Program. The financial sector in South Korea is required to abide by a variety of cybersecurity standards and regulations. Key regulatory requirements include RSEFT and the Guidelines on the Use of Cloud Computing Services in the Financial Industry (FSIGUC). Prior to 2019, the RSEFT guidance didn’t permit the use of cloud computing. The guidance was amended on January 1, 2019, to allow financial institutions to use the public cloud to store and process data, subject to compliance with security measures applicable to financial companies.
AWS is committed to helping our customers adhere to applicable regulations and guidelines, and we help ensure that our financial customers have a hassle-free experience using the cloud. Since 2019, our RSEFT compliance program has aimed to provide a scalable approach to support South Korean financial services customers’ adherence to RSEFT and FSIGUC. Financial services customers can annually either perform an individual audit by using publicly available AWS resources and visiting on-site, or request the South Korea Financial Security Institute (FSI) to conduct the primary audit on their behalf and use the FSI-produced audit reports. In 2023, we worked again with FSI and completed the annual RSEFT primary audit with the participation of 59 customers.
The audit scope of the 2023 assessment covered data center facilities in four Availability Zones (AZ) of the AWS Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region and the services that are available in that Region. The audit program assessed different security domains including security policies, personnel security, risk management, business continuity, incident management, access control, encryption, and physical security.
Completion of this audit program helps our customers use the results and audit report for their annual submission to the South Korea Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) for their adoption and continued use of our cloud services and infrastructure. To learn more about the RSEFT program, see the AWS South Korea Compliance Page. If you have questions, contact your AWS account manager.
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At AWS, security is the highest priority. As customers embrace the scalability and flexibility of AWS, we’re helping them evolve security and compliance into key business enablers. We’re obsessed with earning and maintaining customer trust, and providing our financial services customers and their regulatory bodies with the assurances that AWS has the necessary controls in place to help protect their most sensitive material and regulated workloads.
With the increasing digitalization of the financial industry, and the importance of cloud computing as a key enabling technology for digitalization, the financial services industry is experiencing greater regulatory scrutiny. Our annual audit engagement with CCAG is an example of how AWS supports customers’ risk management and regulatory efforts. For the fifth year, the CCAG pooled audit meticulously assessed the AWS controls that enable us to help protect customers’ data and material workloads, while satisfying strict regulatory obligations.
CCAG represents more than 50 leading European financial services institutions and has grown steadily since its founding in 2017. Based on its mission to provide organizational and logistical support to members so that they can conduct pooled audits with excellence, efficiency, and integrity, the CCAG audit was initiated based on customers’ right to conduct an audit of their service providers under the European Banking Authority (EBA) outsourcing recommendations to cloud service providers (CSPs).
Audit preparations
Using the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) as the framework of reference for the CCAG audit, auditors scoped in key domains and controls to audit, such as identity and access management, change control and configuration, logging and monitoring, and encryption and key management.
The scope of the audit targeted individual AWS services, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and specific AWS Regions where financial services institutions run their workloads, such as the Europe (Frankfurt) Region (eu-central-1).
During this phase, to help provide auditors with a common cloud-specific knowledge and language base, AWS gave various educational and alignment sessions. We offered access to our online resources such as Skill Builder, and delivered onsite briefing and orientation sessions in Paris, France; Barcelona, Spain; and London, UK.
Audit fieldwork
This phase started after a joint kick-off in Berlin, Germany, and used a hybrid approach, with work occurring remotely through the use of videoconferencing and a secure audit portal for the inspection of evidence, and onsite at Amazon’s HQ2, in Arlington, Virginia, in the US.
Auditors assessed AWS policies, procedures, and controls, following a risk-based approach and using sampled evidence and access to subject matter experts (SMEs).
Audit results
After a joint closure ceremony onsite in Warsaw, Poland, auditors finalized the audit report, which included the following positive feedback:
“CCAG would like to thank AWS for helping in achieving the audit objectives and to advocate on CCAG’s behalf to obtain the required assurances. In consequence, CCAG was able to execute the audit according to agreed timelines, and exercise audit rights in line with contractual conditions.”
The results of the CCAG pooled audit are available to the participants and their respective regulators only, and provide CCAG members with assurance regarding the AWS controls environment, enabling members to work to remove compliance blockers, accelerate their adoption of AWS services, and obtain confidence and trust in the security controls of AWS.
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.
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We’re excited to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has completed the first cloud service provider (CSP) audit by the Ingelheim Kreis (IK) Initiative Joint Audits group. The audit group represents quality and compliance professionals from some of our largest pharmaceutical and life sciences customers who collectively perform audits on their key suppliers.
As customers embrace the scalability and flexibility of AWS, we’re helping them evolve security, identity, and compliance into key business enablers. At AWS, we’re obsessed with earning and maintaining customer trust. We work hard to provide our pharmaceutical and life sciences customers and their regulatory bodies with the assurance that AWS has the necessary controls in place to help protect their most sensitive data and regulated workloads.
Our collaboration with the IK Joint Audits Group to complete the first CSP audit is a good example of how we support your risk management and regulatory efforts. Regulated pharmaceutical and life sciences customers are required by GxP to employ a risk-based approach to design, develop, and maintain computerized systems. GxP is a collection of quality guidelines and regulations that are designed to ensure safe development and manufacturing of medical devices, pharmaceuticals, biologic, and other food and medical products. Currently, no specific certifications for GxP compliance exist for CSPs. Pharmaceutical companies must do their own supplier assessment to determine the adequacy of their development and support processes.
The joint audit thoroughly assessed the AWS controls that are designed to protect your data and material workloads and help satisfy your regulatory requirements. As more pharmaceutical and life sciences companies use cloud technology for their operations, the industry is experiencing greater regulatory oversight. Because the joint audit of independent auditors represented a group of companies, both AWS and our customers were able to streamline common controls and increase transparency, and use audit resources more efficiently to help decrease the organizational burden on both the companies and the supplier (in this case, AWS).
Audit results
The IK audit results provide IK members with assurance regarding the AWS controls environment, enabling members to work to remove compliance blockers, accelerate their adoption of AWS services, and obtain confidence and trust in the security controls of AWS.
As stated by the IK auditors, “…in the course of the Audit it became obvious that AWS within their service development, their data center operation and with their employees acts highly professional with a clear customer focus. The amount of control that AWS implemented and continuously extends exceeds our expectations of a qualified CSP”.
The report is confidential and only available to IK members who signed the NDA with AWS prior to the start of the audit in 2023. Members can access the report and assess their own residual risk. To participate in a future audit cycle, contact [email protected].
To learn more about our commitment to safeguard customer data, see AWS Cloud Security. For more information about the robust controls that are in place at AWS, see the AWS Compliance Program page. By integrating governance-focused, audit-friendly service features with applicable compliance or audit standards, AWS Compliance helps you set up and operate in an AWS control environment. Customers can also access AWS Artifact to download other compliance reports that independent auditors have evaluated.
The US East (Ohio) Region first obtained GSMA certification in September 2021, and the Europe (Paris) Region first obtained GSMA certification in October 2021. This renewal demonstrates our continuous commitment to adhere to the heightened expectations for cloud service providers. AWS customers who provide an embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC) for mobile devices can run their remote provisioning applications with confidence in the AWS Cloud in the GSMA-certified Regions.
For up-to-date information related to the certification, see the AWS Compliance Program page and choose GSMA under Europe, Middle East & Africa.
AWS was evaluated by independent third-party auditors that GSMA selected. The Certificate of Compliance that shows AWS achieved GSMA compliance status is available on the GSMA website and through AWS Artifact. AWS Artifact is a self-service portal for on-demand access to AWS compliance reports. Sign in to AWS Artifact in the AWS Management Console, or learn more at Getting Started with AWS Artifact.
To learn more about our compliance and security programs, see AWS Compliance Programs. As always, we value your feedback and questions; reach out to the AWS Compliance team through the Contact Us page. If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.
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We are excited to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has completed its annual Collaborative Cloud Audit Group (CCAG) Cloud Community audit with European financial service institutions (FSIs).
Security at AWS is the highest priority. As customers embrace the scalability and flexibility of AWS, we are helping them evolve security, identity, and compliance into key business enablers. At AWS, we are obsessed with earning and maintaining customer trust, and providing our FSI customers and their regulatory bodies with the assurance that AWS has the necessary controls in place to protect their most sensitive material and regulated workloads. The AWS Compliance Program helps customers understand the robust controls that are in place at AWS. By tying together governance-focused, audit-friendly service features with applicable compliance or audit standards, AWS Compliance helps customers to set up and operate in an AWS security control environment.
An example of how AWS supports customers’ risk management and regulatory efforts is our annual audit engagement with the CCAG. For the fourth year, the CCAG pooled audit thoroughly assessed the AWS controls that enable us to help protect our customers’ data and material workloads, while satisfying strict European and national regulatory obligations. CCAG currently represents more than 50 leading European FSIs and has grown steadily since its inception in 2017. Given the importance of cloud computing for the operations of FSI customers, the financial industry is coming under greater regulatory scrutiny. Similar to prior years, the CCAG 2022 audit was conducted based on customers’ right to conduct an audit of their service providers under European Banking Authority (EBA) outsourcing recommendations to cloud service providers (CSPs). The EBA suggests using pooled audits to use audit resources more efficiently and to decrease the organizational burden on both the clients and the CSP. Figure 1 illustrates the improved cost-effectiveness of pooled audits as compared to individual audits.
Figure 1: Efforts and costs are shared and reduced when a collaborative approach is followed
CCAG audit process
Although there are many security frameworks available, CCAG uses the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) as the framework of reference for their CSP audits. The CSA is a not-for-profit organization with a mission, as stated on its website, to “promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within cloud computing, and to provide education on the uses of cloud computing to help secure all other forms of computing.” CCM is specifically designed to provide fundamental security principles to guide cloud vendors and to assist cloud customers in assessing the overall security risk of a cloud provider.
Between February and December 2022, CCAG audited the AWS controls environment by following a hybrid approach, remotely and onsite in Seattle (USA), Dublin (IRL), and Frankfurt (DEU). For the scope of the 2022 CCAG audit, the participating auditors assessed AWS measures with regards to (1) keeping customer data sovereign, secure, and private, (2) effectively managing threats and vulnerabilities, (3) offering a highly available and resilient infrastructure, (4) preventing and responding rapidly to security events, and (5) enforcing strong authentication mechanisms and strict identity and access management constraint conditions to grant access to resources only under the need-to-know and need-to-have principles.
The scope of the audit encompassed individual services provided by AWS, and the policies, controls, and procedures for (and practice of) managing and maintaining them. Customers will still need to have their auditors assess the environments they create by using these services, and their policies and procedures for (and practices of) managing and maintaining these environments, on their side of the shared responsibility lines of demarcation for the AWS services involved.
CCAG audit results
CCAG members expressed their gratitude to AWS for the audit experience:
“The AWS Security Assurance team provided CCAG auditors with the needed logistical and technical assistance, by navigating the AWS organization to find the required information, performing advocacy of the CCAG audit rights, creating awareness and education, as well as exercising constant pressure for the timely delivery of information.”
The results of the CCAG pooled audit are available to the participants and their respective regulators only, and provide CCAG members with assurance regarding the AWS controls environment, enabling members to work to remove compliance blockers, accelerate their adoption of AWS services, and obtain confidence and trust in the security controls of AWS.
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.
Want more AWS Security news? Follow us on Twitter.
For up-to-date information related to the certification, visit the AWS Compliance Program page and choose GSMA under Europe, Middle East & Africa.
AWS was evaluated by independent third-party auditors selected by GSMA. The Certificate of Compliance that shows that AWS achieved GSMA compliance status is available on the GSMA website and through AWS Artifact. AWS Artifact is a self-service portal for on-demand access to AWS compliance reports. Sign in to AWS Artifact in the AWS Management Console, or learn more at Getting Started with AWS Artifact.
To learn more about our compliance and security programs, see AWS Compliance Programs. As always, we value your feedback and questions; reach out to the AWS Compliance team through the Contact Us page. If you have feedback about this post, you can submit comments in the Comments section below.
Want more AWS Security news? Follow us on Twitter.
In this post, we will show you how to deploy a solution into your Amazon Web Services (AWS) account that enables you to simply attach manual evidence to controls using AWS Audit Manager. Making evidence-collection as seamless as possible minimizes audit fatigue and helps you maintain a strong compliance posture.
As an AWS customer, you can use APIs to deliver high quality software at a rapid pace. If you have compliance-focused teams that rely on manual, ticket-based processes, you might find it difficult to document audit changes as those changes increase in velocity and volume.
As your organization works to meet audit and regulatory obligations, you can save time by incorporating audit compliance processes into a DevOps model. You can use modern services like Audit Manager to make this easier. Audit Manager automates evidence collection and generates reports, which helps reduce manual auditing efforts and enables you to scale your cloud auditing capabilities along with your business.
AWS Audit Manager uses services such as AWS Security Hub, AWS Config, and AWS CloudTrail to automatically collect and organize evidence, such as resource configuration snapshots, user activity, and compliance check results. However, for controls represented in your software or processes without an AWS service-specific metric to gather, you need to manually create and provide documentation as evidence to demonstrate that you have established organizational processes to maintain compliance. The solution in this blog post streamlines these types of activities.
Solution architecture
This solution creates an HTTPS API endpoint, which allows integration with other software development lifecycle (SDLC) solutions, IT service management (ITSM) products, and clinical trial management systems (CTMS) solutions that capture trial process change amendment documentation (in the case of pharmaceutical companies who use AWS to build robust pharmacovigilance solutions). The endpoint can also be a backend microservice to an application that allows contract research organizations (CRO) investigators to add their compliance supporting documentation.
In this solution’s current form, you can submit an evidence file payload along with the assessment and control details to the API and this solution will tie all the information together for the audit report. This post and solution is directed towards engineering teams who are looking for a way to accelerate evidence collection. To maximize the effectiveness of this solution, your engineering team will also need to collaborate with cross-functional groups, such as audit and business stakeholders, to design a process and service that constructs and sends the message(s) to the API and to scale out usage across the organization.
To download the code for this solution, and the configuration that enables you to set up auto-ingestion of manual evidence, see the aws-audit-manager-manual-evidence-automation GitHub repository.
Architecture overview
In this solution, you use AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) templates to build the solution and deploy to your AWS account. See Figure 1 for an illustration of the high-level architecture.
Figure 1. The architecture of the AWS Audit Manager automation solution
The SAM template creates resources that support the following workflow:
A client can call an Amazon API Gateway endpoint by sending a payload that includes assessment details and the evidence payload.
An AWS Lambda function implements the API to handle the request.
Within the Step Functions workflow, a Standard Workflow calls two Lambda functions. The first looks for a matching control within an assessment, and the second updates the control within the assessment with the evidence.
Code for the application’s Lambda implementation of the Step Functions workflow. It also includes a Step Functions definition file.
template.yml
A template that defines the application’s AWS resources.
Resources for this project are defined in the template.yml file. You can update the template to add AWS resources through the same deployment process that updates your application code.
The AWS SAM CLI is an extension of the AWS CLI that adds functionality for building and testing Lambda applications. The AWS SAM CLI uses Docker to run your functions in an Amazon Linux environment that matches Lambda. It can also emulate your application’s build environment and API.
To use the AWS SAM CLI, you need the following tools:
Open your terminal and use the following command to create a folder to clone the project into, then navigate to that folder. Be sure to replace <FolderName> with your own value.
mkdir Desktop/<FolderName>&& cd $_
Clone the project into the folder you just created by using the following command.
Navigate into the newly created project folder by using the following command.
cd aws-audit-manager-manual-evidence-automation
In the AWS SAM shell, use the following command to build the source of your application.
sam build
In the AWS SAM shell, use the following command to package and deploy your application to AWS. Be sure to replace <DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET> with your own unique S3 bucket name.
sam deploy –guided –parameter-overrides paramBucketName=<DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET>
When prompted, enter the AWS Region where AWS Audit Manager was configured. For the rest of the prompts, leave the default values.
To activate the IAM authentication feature for API gateway, override the default value by using the following command.
paramUseIAMwithGateway=AWS_IAM
To test the deployed solution
After you deploy the solution, run an invocation like the one below for an assessment (using curl). Be sure to replace <YOURAPIENDPOINT> and <AWS REGION> with your own values.
Check to see that your file is correctly attached to the control for your assessment.
Form-data interface parameters
The API implements a form-data interface that expects four parameters:
AssessmentName: The name for the assessment in Audit Manager. In this example, the AssessmentName is GxP21cfr11.
ControlSetName: The display name for a control set within an assessment. In this example, the ControlSetName is General requirements.
ControlIdName: this is a particular control within a control set. In this example, the ControlIdName is 11.100(a).
Payload: this is the file representing evidence to be uploaded.
As a refresher of Audit Manager concepts, evidence is collected for a particular control. Controls are grouped into control sets. Control sets can be grouped into a particular framework. The assessment is considered an implementation, or an instance, of the framework. For more information, see AWS Audit Manager concepts and terminology.
To clean up the deployed solution
To clean up the solution, use the following commands to delete the AWS CloudFormation stack and your S3 bucket. Be sure to replace <YourStackId> and <DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET> with your own values.
This solution provides a way to allow for better coordination between your software delivery organization and compliance professionals. This allows your organization to continuously deliver new updates without overwhelming your security professionals with manual audit review tasks.
Next steps
There are various ways to extend this solution.
Update the API Lambda implementation to be a webhook for your favorite software development lifecycle (SDLC) or IT service management (ITSM) solution.
Modify the steps within the Step Functions state machine to more closely match your unique compliance processes.
Use AWS CodePipeline to start Step Functions state machines natively, or integrate a variation of this solution with any continuous compliance workflow that you have.
As a large data processing country, Germany is at the forefront of security and privacy regulation in Europe and sets the tone for other countries to follow. Analyzing and meeting the requirements to participate in Germany’s cloud security industry requires adherence to international, regional, and country-specific standards. Cloudflare is pleased to announce that we have taken appropriate organizational and technical precautions to prevent disruptions to the availability, integrity, authenticity, and confidentiality of Cloudflare’s production systems in accordance with BSI-KritisV. TÜViT, the auditing body tasked with auditing Cloudflare and providing the evidence to BSI every two years. Completion of this audit allows us to comply with the NIS Directive within Germany.
Why do cloud companies operating in Germany need to go through a BSI audit?
In 2019, Cloudflare registered as an Operator of Essential Services’ under the EU Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS Directive). The NIS Directive is cybersecurity legislation with the goal to enhance cybersecurity across the EU. Every member state has started to adopt national legislation for the NIS Directive and the criteria for compliance is set individually by each country. As an ‘Operator of Essential Services’ in Germany, Cloudflare is regulated by the Federal Office for Information Security (The BSI) and must adhere to the requirements set by The BSI.
What does the audit prove?
This audit includes a thorough review of Cloudflare’s security controls in the following areas:
Asset Management
Risk Analysis
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Personnel and Organizational Security
Encryption
Network Security
Security Authentication
Incident Response
Vendor Security
Physical Security
In addition to an audit of Cloudflare’s security controls in the aforementioned areas, TÜViT also conducted a thorough review of Cloudflare’s Information Security Management System (ISMS).
By having these areas audited, German customers can rest assured that Cloudflare respects the requirements put forth by the governing bodies tasked with protecting their data.
Are there any additional German-specific audits on the horizon?
Yes. Cloudflare is currently undergoing an independent third-party audit for the Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalog (C5) certification. The C5 was introduced by BSI Germany in 2016 and reviews operational security within cloud services. Industries that place a high level of importance on C5 include cloud computing and German federal agencies. Learn more here.
What other certifications does Cloudflare hold that demonstrate its dedication to privacy and security?
Different certifications measure different elements of a company’s security or privacy posture. Cloudflare has met the requirements of the following standards:
ISO 27001 – Cloudflare has been ISO 27001 certified since 2019. Customers can be assured that Cloudflare has a formal information security management program that adheres to a globally recognized standard.
SOC2 Type II – Cloudflare maintains SOC reports that include the security, confidentiality, and availability trust principles.
PCI DSS – Cloudflare engages with a QSA (Qualified Security Assessor) on an annual basis to evaluate us as a Level 1 Merchant and a Service Provider.
ISO 27701 – Cloudflare was one of the first companies in the industry to achieve ISO 27701 certification as both a data processor and controller. The certification provides assurance to our customers that we have a formal privacy program that is aligned to GDPR.
FedRAMP In Process – Cloudflare hit a major milestone by being listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace as ‘In Process’ for receiving an agency authorization at a moderate baseline. Once an Authorization to Operate (ATO) is granted, it will allow agencies and other cloud service providers to leverage our product and services in a public sector capacity.
Pro, Business, and Enterprise customers now have the ability to obtain a copy of Cloudflare’s certifications, reports, and overview through the Cloudflare Dashboard. For the latest information about our certifications and reports, please visit our Trust Hub.
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