Tag Archives: AWS Compliance

2022 PiTuKri ISAE 3000 Type II attestation report available with 154 services in scope

Post Syndicated from Daniel Fuertes original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/2022-pitukri-isae-3000-type-ii-attestation-report-available-with-154-services-in-scope/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce the second issuance of the Criteria to Assess the Information Security of Cloud Services (PiTuKri) International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 Type II attestation report. The scope of the report covers a total of 154 services and 24 global AWS Regions.

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) Cyber Security Centre published PiTuKri, which consists of 52 criteria that provide guidance when assessing the security of cloud service providers. The criteria are organized into the following 11 subdivisions:

  • Framework conditions
  • Security management
  • Personnel security
  • Physical security
  • Communications security
  • Identity and access management
  • Information system security
  • Encryption
  • Operations security
  • Transferability and compatibility
  • Change management and system development

It is our pleasure to announce the addition of 16 new services and two new Regions to our PiTuKri attestation scope. A few examples of the new security services included are:

  • AWS CloudShell – A browser-based shell that makes it simple to manage, explore, and interact with your AWS resources. With CloudShell, you can quickly run scripts with the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), experiment with AWS service APIs by using the AWS SDKs, or use a range of other tools to be productive.
  • Amazon HealthLake – A HIPAA-eligible service that offers healthcare and life sciences companies a chronological view of individual or patient population health data for query and analytics at scale.
  • AWS IoT SiteWise – A managed service that simplifies collecting, organizing, and analyzing industrial equipment data.
  • Amazon DevOps Guru – A service that uses machine learning to detect abnormal operating patterns to help you identify operational issues before they impact your customers.

The latest report covers the period from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022. It was issued by an independent third-party audit firm to assure customers that the AWS control environment is appropriately designed and implemented in accordance with PiTuKri requirements. This attestation demonstrates the AWS commitment to meet security expectations for cloud service providers set by Traficom.

Customers can find the full PiTuKri ISAE 3000 report on AWS Artifact. To learn more about the complete list of certified services and Regions, customers can also refer to AWS Compliance Programs and AWS Services in Scope for PiTuKri.

AWS strives to continuously bring new services into scope of its compliance programs to help customers meet their architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team for any questions about the PiTuKri report.

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Author

Daniel Fuertes

Daniel is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS based in Madrid, Spain. Daniel leads multiple security audits, attestations, and certification programs in Spain and other EMEA countries. Daniel has 8 years of experience in security assurance and previously worked as an auditor for PCI DSS security framework.

2022 FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II attestation report now available with 154 services in scope

Post Syndicated from Daniel Fuertes original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/2022-finma-isae-3000-type-ii-attestation-report-now-available-with-154-services-in-scope/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce the third issuance of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 Type II attestation report. The scope of the report covers a total of 154 services and 24 global AWS Regions.

The latest FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II report covers the period from October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022. AWS continues to assure Swiss financial industry customers that our control environment is capable of effectively addressing key operational, outsourcing, and business continuity management risks.

FINMA circulars

The report covers the five core FINMA circulars regarding outsourcing arrangements to the cloud. FINMA circulars help Swiss-regulated financial institutions to understand the approaches FINMA takes when implementing due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls for cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads.

The scope of the report covers the following requirements of the FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 Outsourcing – Banks, insurance companies and selected financial institutions under FinIA
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019)
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Appendix 3 Handling of Electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019)
  • 2013/03 Auditing – Information Technology (04.11.2020)
  • 2008/10 Self-regulation as a minimum standard – Minimum Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013)

It is our pleasure to announce the addition of 16 services and two Regions to the FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II attestation scope. The following are a few examples of the additional security services in scope:

  • AWS CloudShell – A browser-based shell that makes it simple to manage, explore, and interact with your AWS resources. With CloudShell, you can quickly run scripts with the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), experiment with AWS service APIs by using the AWS SDKs, or use a range of other tools to be productive.
  • Amazon HealthLake – A HIPAA-eligible service that offers healthcare and life sciences companies a chronological view of individual or patient population health data for query and analytics at scale.
  • AWS IoT SiteWise – A managed service that simplifies collecting, organizing, and analyzing industrial equipment data.
  • Amazon DevOps Guru – A service that uses machine learning to detect abnormal operating patterns to help you identify operational issues before they impact your customers.

Customers can continue to reference the FINMA workbooks, which include detailed control mappings for each FINMA circular covered under this audit report, through AWS Artifact. Customers can also find the entire FINMA report on AWS Artifact. To learn more about the list of certified services and Regions, see AWS Compliance Programs and AWS Services in Scope for FINMA.

As always, AWS is committed to adding new services into our future FINMA program scope based on your architectural and regulatory needs. If you have questions about the FINMA report, contact your AWS account team.

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Author

Daniel Fuertes

Daniel is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS based in Madrid, Spain. Daniel leads multiple security audits, attestations, and certification programs in Spain and other EMEA countries. Daniel has 8 years of experience in security assurance and previously worked as an auditor for PCI DSS security framework.

154 AWS services achieve HITRUST certification

Post Syndicated from Sonali Vaidya original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/154-aws-services-achieve-hitrust-certification/

The AWS HITRUST Compliance Team is excited to announce that 154 Amazon Web Services (AWS) services are certified for the Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) Common Security Framework (CSF) v9.6 for the 2022 cycle.

These 154 AWS services were audited by a third-party assessor and certified under the HITRUST CSF. The full list is now available on the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program page. As an AWS customer, you can view and download our HITRUST CSF certification at any time through AWS Artifact.

AWS HITRUST CSF certification is available for customer inheritance

As an AWS customer, you can deploy business solutions into the AWS Cloud environment and inherit the AWS HITRUST CSF certification, provided that your organization uses only in-scope services, and you properly apply the controls that your organization is responsible for as detailed in the HITRUST Shared Responsibility and Inheritance Program.

With 154 AWS services receiving HITRUST certification, as an AWS customer you can tailor your security control baselines to a variety of factors—including, but not limited to, your regulatory requirements and your organization type. The HITRUST CSF is widely adopted by leading organizations in a variety of industries as part of their approach to security and privacy. For more information, see the HITRUST website.

As always, we value your feedback and questions and are committed to helping you achieve and maintain the highest standard of security and compliance. Feel free to contact the team through AWS Compliance Contact Us. If you have feedback about this post, please submit comments in the Comments section below.

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Author

Sonali Vaidya

Sonali leads multiple AWS global compliance programs including HITRUST, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27701, ISO 9001, and CSA STAR. Sonali has over 21 years of experience in information security and privacy management and holds multiple certifications such as CISSP, C-GDPR|P, CCSK, CEH, CISA, PCIP, ISO 27001 & ISO 22301 Lead Auditor.

Wickr for Government achieves FedRAMP Ready designation

Post Syndicated from Anne Grahn original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/wickr-for-government-achieves-fedramp-ready-designation/

AWS is pleased to announce that Wickr for Government (WickrGov) has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Ready status at the Moderate Impact Level, and is actively working toward FedRAMP Authorized status.

FedRAMP is a US government-wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud services across the federal government by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies.

Customers find security and control in Wickr

Wickr is a unified collaboration solution that meets security criteria set out by the National Security Agency (NSA), providing enterprises and government agencies with advanced security and administrative controls to help them satisfy requirements. WickrGov is a hosted version of Wickr Enterprise that includes communication mechanisms—such as one-to-one and group messaging, audio and video calling, screen sharing, and file sharing—that are protected with 256-bit end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

Encryption takes place locally, on the endpoint. Every call, message, and file is encrypted with a new random key, and no one but the intended recipients (not even Wickr or AWS) can decrypt them. Flexible administrative features enable organizations to deploy at scale, and facilitate information governance.

Information can be selectively logged to a secure, customer-defined data store for compliance, e-discovery, and auditing purposes. Users have full administrative control over data, which includes setting permissions, configuring ephemeral messaging options, and defining security groups. Wickr integrates with additional services such as Active Directory, single sign-on (SSO) with OpenID Connect (OIDC), and more.

The FedRAMP milestone

In obtaining a FedRAMP Ready designation, WickrGov has been measured against a set of security controls, procedures, and policies established by the US Federal Government, based on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) standards. WickrGov offers a fully managed secure collaboration service for US government data, operating within the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

“We are proud to have secured FedRAMP Ready status for Wickr for Government. Our customers turn to Wickr for the security they need to protect field agents and officers, without sacrificing the ability to manage and retain records as required,” says Wickr GM Joel Wallenstrom. “This achievement demonstrates our strategic commitment to providing government agencies and commercial organizations solutions that meet the highest standards for data security, as well as operational integrity and control.”

FedRAMP on AWS

AWS is continually expanding the scope of our compliance programs to help customers use authorized services for sensitive and regulated workloads. We now offer 125 AWS services authorized in the AWS US East/West Regions under FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, and 99 services authorized in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions under FedRAMP High Authorization.

The FedRAMP Ready status for WickrGov further validates our commitment at AWS to public-sector customers, and enables organizations to combine the security of high-standard encryption with the administrative control needed to keep up with regulatory changes. WickrGov is now listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace.

For up-to-date information, see our Services in Scope by Compliance Program page. For details about the WickrGov platform, please visit the FedRAMP Marketplace, or email [email protected].

If you have feedback about this blog post, let us know in the Comments section below.

Anne Grahn

Anne Grahn

Anne is a Senior Worldwide Security GTM Specialist at AWS based in Chicago. She has more than a decade of experience in the security industry, and has a strong focus on privacy risk management. She maintains a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.

Randy Brumfield

Randy Brumfield

Randy leads technology business for new initiatives and the Cloud Support Engineering team at Wickr, an AWS Company. Prior to Wickr (and AWS), Randy spent close to two and a half decades in Silicon Valley across several start-ups, networking companies, and system integrators in various corporate development, product management, and operations roles. Randy currently resides in San Jose, California.

AWS HITRUST CSF certification is available for customer inheritance

Post Syndicated from Sonali Vaidya original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-hitrust-csf-certification-is-available-for-customer-inheritance/

As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer, you don’t have to assess the controls that you inherit from the AWS HITRUST Validated Assessment Questionnaire, because AWS already has completed HITRUST assessment using version 9.4 in 2021. You can deploy your environments onto AWS and inherit our HITRUST CSF certification, provided that you use only in-scope services and apply the controls detailed on the HITRUST website.

HITRUST certification allows you to tailor your security control baselines to a variety of factors—including, but not limited to, regulatory requirements and organization type. HITRUST CSF has been widely adopted by leading organizations in a variety of industries as part of their approach to security and privacy. Visit the HITRUST website for more information.

Have you submitted HITRUST Inheritance Program requests to AWS, but haven’t received a response yet? Understand why …

The HITRUST MyCSF manual provides step-by-step instructions for completing the HITRUST Inheritance process. It’s a simple four-step process, as follows:

  1. You create the Inheritance request in the HITRUST MyCSF tool.
  2. You submit the request to AWS.
  3. AWS will either approve or reject the Inheritance request based on the AWS HITRUST Shared Responsibility Matrix.
  4. Finally, you can apply all approved Inheritance requests to your HITRUST Compliance Assessment.

Unless a request is submitted to AWS, we will not be able to approve it. If a prolonged period of time has gone by and you haven’t received a response from AWS, most likely you created the request but didn’t submit it to AWS.

We are committed to helping you achieve and maintain the highest standard of security and compliance. As always, we value your feedback and questions. Feel free to contact the team through AWS Compliance Contact Us. If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

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Author

Sonali Vaidya

Sonali leads multiple AWS global compliance programs, including HITRUST, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27701, ISO 9001, and CSA STAR. Sonali has over 20 years of experience in information security and privacy management and holds multiple certifications, such as CISSP, C-GDPR|P, CCSK, CEH, CISA, PCIP, and Lead Auditor for ISO 27001 and ISO 22301.

AWS and the UK rules on operational resilience and outsourcing

Post Syndicated from Arvind Kannan original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-and-the-uk-rules-on-operational-resilience-and-outsourcing/

Financial institutions across the globe use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to transform the way they do business. Regulations continue to evolve in this space, and we’re working hard to help customers proactively respond to new rules and guidelines. In many cases, the AWS Cloud makes it simpler than ever before to assist customers with their compliance efforts with different regulations and frameworks around the world.

In the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Bank of England and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) issued policy statements and rules on operational resilience in March, 2021. The PRA also additionally issued a supervisory statement on outsourcing and third-party risk management. Broadly, these Statements apply to certain firms that are regulated by the UK Financial Regulators: this includes banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers, financial markets infrastructure providers, payment and e-money institutions, major investment firms, mixed activity holding companies, and UK branches of certain overseas firms. For other FCA-authorized financial services firms, the FCA has previously issued FG 16/5 Guidance for firms outsourcing to the ‘cloud’ and other third-party IT services.

These Statements are relevant to the use of cloud services. AWS strives to help support our customers with their compliance obligations and help them meet their regulator’s expectations. We offer our customers a wide range of services that can simplify and directly assist in complying with these Statements, which apply from March 2022.

What do these Statements from the UK Financial Regulators mean for AWS customers?

The Statements aim to ensure greater operational resilience for UK financial institutions and, in the case of the PRA’s papers on outsourcing, facilitate greater adoption of the cloud and other new technologies while also implementing the Guidelines on outsourcing arrangements from the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the relevant sections of the EBA Guidelines on ICT and security risk management. (See the AWS approach to these EBA guidelines in this blog post).

For AWS and our customers, the key takeaway is that these Statements provide a regulatory framework for cloud usage in a resilient manner. The PRA’s outsourcing paper, in particular, sets out conditions that can help give PRA-regulated firms assurance that they can deploy to the cloud in a safe and resilient manner, including for material, regulated workloads. When they consider or use third-party services (such as AWS), many UK financial institutions already follow due diligence, risk management, and regulatory notification processes that are similar to the processes identified in these Statements, the EBA Outsourcing Guidelines, and FG 16/5. UK financial institutions can use a variety of AWS security and compliance services to help them meet requirements on security, resilience, and assurance.

Risk-based approach

The Statements reference the principle of proportionality throughout. In the case of the outsourcing requirements, this includes a focus on material outsourcing arrangements and incorporating a risk-based approach that expects regulated entities to identify, assess, and mitigate the risks associated with outsourcing arrangements. The recognition of a shared responsibility model, referenced by the PRA and the recognition in FCA Guidance FG 16/5 that firms need to be clear about where responsibility lies between themselves and their service providers, is consistent with the long-standing AWS shared responsibility model. The proportionality and risk-based approach applies throughout the Statements, including the areas such as risk assessment, contractual and audit requirements, data location and transfer, operational resilience, and security implementation:

  • Risk assessment – The Statements emphasize the need for UK financial institutions to assess the potential impact of outsourcing arrangements on their operational risk. The AWS shared responsibility model helps customers formulate their risk assessment approach, because it illustrates how their security and management responsibilities change depending on the services from AWS they use. For example, AWS operates some controls on behalf of customers, such as data center security, while customers operate other controls, such as event logging. In practice, AWS helps customers assess and improve their risk profile relative to traditional, on-premises environments.
     
  • Contractual and audit requirements – The PRA supervisory statement on outsourcing and third-party risk management, the EBA Outsourcing Guidelines, and the FCA guidance FG 16/5 lay out requirements for the written agreement between a UK financial institution and its service provider, including access and audit rights. For UK financial institutions that are running regulated workloads on AWS, please contact your AWS account team to address these contractual requirements. We also help institutions that require contractual audit rights to comply with these requirements through the AWS Security & Audit Series, which facilitates customer audits. To align with regulatory requirements and expectations, our audit program incorporates feedback that we’ve received from EU and UK financial supervisory authorities. UK financial services customers interested in learning more about the audit engagements offered by AWS can reach out to their AWS account teams.
     
  • Data location and transfer – The UK Financial Regulators do not place restrictions on where a UK financial institution can store and process its data, but rather state that UK financial institutions should adopt a risk-based approach to data location. AWS continually monitors the evolving regulatory and legislative landscape around data privacy to identify changes and determine what tools our customers might need to help meet their compliance needs. Refer to our Data Protection page for our commitments, including commitments on data access and data storage.
     
  • Operational resilience – Resiliency is a shared responsibility between AWS and the customer. It is important that customers understand how disaster recovery and availability, as part of resiliency, operate under this shared model. AWS is responsible for resiliency of the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud. This infrastructure comprises the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run AWS Cloud services. AWS uses commercially reasonable efforts to make these AWS Cloud services available, ensuring that service availability meets or exceeds the AWS Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

    The customer’s responsibility will be determined by the AWS Cloud services that they select. This determines the amount of configuration work they must perform as part of their resiliency responsibilities. For example, a service such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) requires the customer to perform all of the necessary resiliency configuration and management tasks. Customers that deploy Amazon EC2 instances are responsible for deploying EC2 instances across multiple locations (such as AWS Availability Zones), implementing self-healing by using services like AWS Auto Scaling, as well as using resilient workload architecture best practices for applications that are installed on the instances.

    For managed services, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon DynamoDB, AWS operates the infrastructure layer, the operating system, and platforms, whereas customers access the endpoints to store and retrieve data. Customers are responsible for managing resiliency of their data, including backup, versioning, and replication strategies. For more details about our approach to operational resilience in financial services, refer to this whitepaper.

  • Security implementation – The Statements set expectations on data security, including data classification and data security, and require UK financial institutions to consider, implement, and monitor various security measures. Using AWS can help customers meet these requirements in a scalable and cost-effective way, while helping improve their security posture. Customers can use AWS Config or AWS Security Hub to simplify auditing, security analysis, change management, and operational troubleshooting.

    As part of their cybersecurity measures, customers can activate Amazon GuardDuty, which provides intelligent threat detection and continuous monitoring, to generate detailed and actionable security alerts. Amazon Macie uses machine learning and pattern matching to help customers classify their sensitive and business-critical data in AWS. Amazon Inspector automatically assesses a customer’s AWS resources for vulnerabilities or deviations from best practices and then produces a detailed list of security findings prioritized by level of severity.

    Customers can also enhance their security by using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) (creation and control of encryption keys), AWS Shield (DDoS protection), and AWS WAF (helps protect web applications or APIs against common web exploits). These are just a few of the many services and features we offer that are designed to provide strong availability and security for our customers.

As reflected in these Statements, it’s important to take a balanced approach when evaluating responsibilities in cloud implementation. AWS is responsible for the security of the AWS infrastructure, and for all of our data centers, we assess and manage environmental risks, employ extensive physical and personnel security controls, and guard against outages through our resiliency and testing procedures. In addition, independent third-party auditors evaluate the AWS infrastructure against more than 2,600 standards and requirements throughout the year.

Conclusion

We encourage customers to learn about how these Statements apply to their organization. Our teams of security, compliance, and legal experts continue to work with our UK financial services customers, both large and small, to support their journey to the AWS Cloud. AWS is closely following how the UK regulatory authorities apply the Statements and will provide further updates as needed. If you have any questions about compliance with these Statements and their application to your use of AWS, reach out to your account representative or request to be contacted.

 
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Arvind Kannan

Arvind Kannan

Arvind is a Principal Compliance Specialist at Amazon Web Services based in London, United Kingdom. He spends his days working with financial services customers in the UK and across EMEA, helping them address questions around governance, risk and compliance. He has a strong focus on compliance and helping customers navigate the regulatory requirements and understand supervisory expectations.

AWS HITRUST Shared Responsibility Matrix version 1.2 now available

Post Syndicated from Sonali Vaidya original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-hitrust-shared-responsibility-matrix-version-1-2-now-available/

The latest version of the AWS HITRUST Shared Responsibility Matrix is now available to download. Version 1.2 is based on HITRUST MyCSF version 9.4[r2] and was released by HITRUST on April 20, 2022.

AWS worked with HITRUST to update the Shared Responsibility Matrix and to add new controls based on MyCSF v9.4[r2]. You don’t have to assess these additional controls because AWS already has completed HITRUST assessment using version 9.4 in 2021 . You can deploy your environments on AWS and inherit our HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) certification, provided that you use only in-scope services and apply the controls detailed on the HITRUST website.

What this means for our customers

The new AWS HITRUST Shared Responsibility Matrix has been tailored to reflect both the Cross Version ID (CVID) and Baseline Unique ID (BUID) in HITRUST so that you can select the correct control for inheritance even if you’re still using an older version of HITRUST MyCSF for your own assessment.

With the new version, you can also inherit some additional controls based on MyCSF v9.4[r2].

At AWS, we’re committed to helping you achieve and maintain the highest standards of security and compliance. We value your feedback and questions. You can contact the AWS HITRUST team at AWS Compliance Contact Us. If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Want more AWS Security ‘how-to’ content, news, and feature announcements? Follow us on Twitter.

Author

Sonali Vaidya

Sonali leads multiple AWS global compliance programs, including HITRUST, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27701, ISO 9001, and CSA STAR. Sonali has over 20 years of experience in information security and privacy management and holds multiple certifications such as CISSP, C-GDPR|P, CCSK, CEH, CISA, PCIP, ISO 27001, and ISO 22301 Lead Auditor.

AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland and FINMA workbooks publications

Post Syndicated from Margo Cronin original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-user-guide-to-financial-services-regulations-and-guidelines-in-switzerland-and-finma/

AWS is pleased to announce the publication of the AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland whitepaper and workbooks.

This guide refers to certain rules applicable to financial institutions in Switzerland, including banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, securities dealers, portfolio managers, trustees and other financial entities which are overseen (directly or indirectly) by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

Amongst other topics, this guide covers requirements created by the following regulations and publications of interest to Swiss financial institutions:

  • Federal Laws – including Article 47 of the Swiss Banking Act (BA). Banks and Savings Banks are overseen by FINMA and governed by the BA (Bundesgesetz über die Banken und Sparkassen, Bankengesetz, BankG). Article 47 BA holds relevance in the context of outsourcing.
  • Response on Cloud Guidelines for Swiss Financial institutions produced by the Swiss Banking Union, Schweizerische Bankiervereinigung SBVg.
  • Controls outlined by FINMA, Switzerland’s independent regulator of financial markets, that may be applicable to Swiss banks and insurers in the context of outsourcing arrangements to the cloud.

In combination with the AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland whitepaper, customers can use the detailed AWS FINMA workbooks and ISAE 3000 report available from AWS Artifact.

The five core FINMA circulars are intended to assist Swiss-regulated financial institutions in understanding approaches to due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls that should be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads. The AWS FINMA workbooks and ISAE 3000 report scope covers, in detail, requirements of the following FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 Outsourcing – banks and insurers (04.11.2020)
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019)
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019)
  • 2013/03 Auditing – Information Technology (04.11.2020)
  • 2008/10 Self-regulation as a minimum standard – Minimum Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013)

Customers can use the detailed FINMA workbooks, which include detailed control mappings for each FINMA control, covering both the AWS control activities and the Customer User Entity Controls. Where applicable, under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, these workbooks provide industry standard practices, incorporating AWS Well-Architected, to assist Swiss customers in their own preparation for FINMA circular alignment.

This whitepaper follows the issuance of the second Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report. The latest report covers the period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, with a total of 141 AWS services and 23 global AWS Regions included in the scope. Customers can download the report from AWS Artifact. A full list of certified services and Regions is presented within the published FINMA report.

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the scope of our FINMA program in the future based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have any questions or feedback. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.

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Author

Margo Cronin

Margo is a Principal Security Specialist at Amazon Web Services based in Zurich, Switzerland. She spends her days working with customers, from startups to the largest of enterprises, helping them build new capabilities and accelerating their cloud journey. She has a strong focus on security, helping customers improve their security, risk, and compliance in the cloud.

AWS publishes PiTuKri ISAE3000 Type II Attestation Report for Finnish customers

Post Syndicated from Niyaz Noor original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-publishes-pitukri-isae3000-type-ii-attestation-report-for-finnish-customers/

Gaining and maintaining customer trust is an ongoing commitment at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Our customers’ industry security requirements drive the scope and portfolio of compliance reports, attestations, and certifications we pursue. AWS is pleased to announce the issuance of the Criteria to Assess the Information Security of Cloud Services (PiTuKri) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report. The scope of this report includes 141 AWS services and associated AWS global infrastructure, such as Regions and Edge Locations supporting these services.

Criteria for Assessing the Information Security of Cloud Services (PiTuKri) is a guidance document published by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) Cyber Security Centre for assessing the security of cloud computing services, such as AWS. The PiTuKri criteria covers a total of 11 subdivisions such as security management, personnel security and physical security which cloud service providers are expected to implement. AWS has engaged with an independent third-party audit firm to examine whether the AWS control environment is appropriately designed and implemented to align with PiTuKri requirements. Additionally, the report provides customers with important guidance on complementary user entity controls (CUECs), which customers should consider implementing as part of the shared responsibility model to help them comply with PiTuKri requirements. The report covers the period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021. A full list of certified services and Regions is presented within the published PiTuKri ISAE3000 report.

The alignment of AWS with PiTuKri requirements demonstrates our continuous commitment to meeting the heightened expectations for cloud service providers set by Traficom. Customers can use the AWS’ PiTuKri ISAE 3000 report as a tool to conduct their due diligence on AWS, which may minimize the effort and costs required for compliance. The report is now available free of charge to AWS customers from AWS Artifact. More information on how to download the report is available here.

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the scope of our PiTuKri program in the future, based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions about the PiTuKri report. You can also download this blog post translated into Finnish.

 
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Author

Niyaz Noor

Niyaz is the Security Audit Program Manager at AWS. Niyaz leads multiple security certification programs across Europe and other regions. During his professional career, he has helped multiple cloud service providers in obtaining global and regional security certification. He is passionate about delivering programs that build customers’ trust and provide them assurance on cloud security.

2021 FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report for Switzerland now available on AWS Artifact

Post Syndicated from Niyaz Noor original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/2021-finma-isae-3000-type-2-attestation-report-for-switzerland-now-available-on-aws-artifact/

AWS is pleased to announce the issuance of a second Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report. The latest report covers the period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, with a total of 141 AWS services and 23 global AWS Regions included in the scope.

A full list of certified services and Regions are presented within the published FINMA report; customers can download the latest report from AWS Artifact.

The FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 report, conducted by an independent third-party audit firm, provides Swiss financial industry customers with the assurance that the AWS control environment is appropriately designed and implemented to address key operational risks, as well as risks related to outsourcing and business continuity management.

FINMA circulars

The report covers the five core FINMA circulars applicable to Swiss banks and insurers in the context of outsourcing arrangements to the cloud. These FINMA circulars are intended to assist Swiss-regulated financial institutions in understanding approaches to due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls that should be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads.

The report’s scope covers, in detail, the requirements of the following FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 Outsourcing – banks, insurance companies and selected financial institutions under FinIA;
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019);
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019);
  • 2013/03 Auditing – Information Technology (04.11.2020);
  • 2008/10 Self-regulation as a minimum standard – Minimum Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013);

Customers can continue to use the detailed FINMA workbooks that include detailed control mappings for each FINMA circular covered under this audit report; these workbooks are available on AWS Artifact. Where applicable, under the AWS shared responsibility model, these workbooks provide best practices guidance using AWS Well-Architected to assist Swiss customers in their own preparation for alignment with FINMA circulars.

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the future scope of our FINMA program based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions or feedback about the FINMA report.

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Author

Niyaz Noor

Niyaz is the Security Audit Program Manager at AWS. Niyaz leads multiple security certification programs across Europe and other regions. During his professional career, he has helped multiple cloud service providers in obtaining global and regional security certification. He is passionate about delivering programs that build customers’ trust and provide them assurance on cloud security.

AWS achieves Spain’s ENS High certification across 149 services

Post Syndicated from Niyaz Noor original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-achieves-spains-ens-high-certification-across-149-services/

Gaining and maintaining customer trust is an ongoing commitment at Amazon Web Services (AWS). We continually add more services to our ENS certification scope. This helps to assure public sector organizations in Spain that want to build secure applications and services on AWS that the expected ENS certification security standards are being met.

ENS certification establishes security standards that apply to all government agencies and public organizations in Spain, and to service providers that the public services are dependent on. Spain’s National Security Framework is regulated under Royal Decree 3/2010 and was developed through close collaboration between Entidad Nacional de Acreditación (ENAC), the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, and the National Cryptologic Centre (CCN), as well as other administrative bodies.

We’re excited to announce the addition of 44 new services to the scope of our Spain Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS) High certification, for a total of 149 services. The certification covers all AWS Regions. Some of the new security services included in ENS High scope are:

  • Amazon Macie is a data security and data privacy service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to help you discover, monitor, and protect your sensitive data in AWS.
  • AWS Control Tower is a service you can use to set up and govern a new, secure, multi-account AWS environment based on best practices established through AWS’s experience working with thousands of enterprises as they move to the cloud.
  • Amazon Fraud Detector is a fully managed machine learning (ML) fraud detection solution that provides everything needed to build, deploy, and manage fraud detection models.
  • AWS Network Firewall is a managed service that makes it easier to deploy essential network protections for all your Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (Amazon VPC).

AWS’s achievement of the ENS High certification is verified by BDO España, which conducted an independent audit and attested that AWS meets the required confidentiality, integrity, and availability standards.

For more information about ENS High, see the AWS Compliance page Esquema Nacional de Seguridad High. To view which services are covered, see the ENS High tab on the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program page. You can download the Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS) Certificate from AWS Artifact in the AWS Console or from the Compliance page Esquema Nacional de Seguridad High.

As always, we’re committed to bringing new services into the scope of our ENS High program based on your architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team or [email protected] if you have questions about the ENS program.

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Author

Niyaz Noor

Niyaz is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS. Niyaz leads multiple security certification programs across the Asia Pacific, Japan, and Europe Regions. During his professional career, he has helped multiple cloud service providers obtain global and regional security certifications. He is passionate about delivering programs that build customers’ trust and provide them assurance on cloud security.

Announcing the AWS Security and Privacy Knowledge Hub for Australia and New Zealand

Post Syndicated from Phil Rodrigues original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/announcing-the-aws-security-and-privacy-knowledge-hub-for-australia-and-new-zealand/

Cloud technology provides organizations across Australia and New Zealand with the flexibility to adapt quickly and scale their digital presences up or down in response to consumer demand. In 2021 and beyond, we expect to see cloud adoption continue to accelerate as organizations of all sizes realize the agility, operational, and financial benefits of moving to the cloud.

To fully harness the benefits of the digital economy it’s important that you remain vigilant about the security of your technology resources in order to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your systems and data. Security is our top priority at AWS, and more than ever we believe it’s critical for everyone to understand the best practices to use cloud technology securely. Organizations of all sizes can benefit by implementing automated guardrails that allow you to innovate while maintaining the highest security standards. We want to help you move fast and innovate quickly while staying secure.

This is why we are excited to announce the new AWS Security and Privacy Knowledge Hub for Australia and New Zealand.

The new website offers many resources specific to Australia and New Zealand, including:

  • The latest local security and privacy updates from AWS security experts in Australia and New Zealand.
  • How customers can use AWS to help meet the requirements of local privacy laws, government security standards, and banking security guidance.
  • Local customer stories about Australian and New Zealand companies and agencies that focus on security, privacy, and compliance.
  • Details about AWS infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand, including the upcoming AWS Region in Melbourne.
  • General FAQs on security and privacy in the cloud.

AWS maintains the highest security and privacy practices, which is one reason we are trusted by governments and organizations around the world to deliver services to millions of individuals. In Australia and New Zealand, we have hundreds of thousands of active customers using AWS each month, with many building mission critical applications for their business. For example, the National Bank of Australia (NAB) provides banking platforms like NAB Connect that offer services to businesses of all sizes, built on AWS. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) offers the flexibility and speed for all Australians to lodge their tax returns electronically on the MyTax application, built on AWS. The University of Auckland runs critical teaching and learning applications relied on by their 18,000 students around the world, built on AWS. AWS Partner Versent helps businesses like Transurban and government agencies like Service NSW operate in the cloud securely, built on AWS.

Security is a shared responsibility between AWS and our customers. You should review the security features that we provide with our services, and be familiar with how to implement your security requirements within your AWS environment. To help you with your responsibility, we offer security services and partner solutions that you can utilize to implement automated and effective security in the cloud. This allows you to focus on your business while keeping your content and applications secure.

We’re inspired by the rapid rate of innovation as customers of all sizes use the cloud to create new business models and work to improve our communities, now and into the future. We look forward to seeing what you will build next on AWS – with security as your top priority.

The AWS Security and Privacy Knowledge Hub for Australia and New Zealand launched today.

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Author

Phil Rodrigues

Phil is the Head of the Security Team, Australia & New Zealand for AWS, based in Sydney. He and his team work with AWS’s largest customers to improve their security, risk and compliance in the cloud. Phil is a frequent speaker at AWS and cloud security events across Australia. Prior to AWS he worked for over 20 years in Information Security in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

AWS publishes FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report for the Swiss financial industry

Post Syndicated from Niyaz Noor original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-publishes-finma-isae-3000-type-2-attestation-report-for-the-swiss-financial-industry/

Gaining and maintaining customer trust is an ongoing commitment at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Our customers’ industry security requirements drive the scope and portfolio of compliance reports, attestations, and certifications we pursue. Following up on our announcement in November 2020 of the new EU (Zurich) Region, AWS is pleased to announce the issuance of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report.

The FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 report, conducted by an independent third-party audit firm, provides Swiss financial industry customers with the assurance that the AWS control environment is appropriately designed and implemented to address key operational risks, as well as risks related to outsourcing and business continuity management. Additionally, the report provides customers with important guidance on complementary user entity controls (CUECs), which customers should consider implementing as part of the shared responsibility model to help them comply with FINMA’s control objectives. The report covers the period from 4/1/2020 to 9/30/2020, with a total of 124 AWS services and 22 global Regions included in the scope. A full list of certified services and Regions are presented within the published FINMA report.

The report covers the five core FINMA circulars that are applicable to Swiss banks and insurers in the context of outsourcing arrangements to the cloud. These FINMA circulars are intended to assist regulated financial institutions in understanding approaches to due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls that should be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads. The report’s scope covers, in detail, the requirements of the following FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 “Outsourcing – banks and insurers” (31.10.2019);
  • 2008/21 “Operational Risks – Banks” – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019);
  • 2008/21 “Operational Risks – Banks” – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019);
  • 2013/03 “Auditing” (04.11.2020) – Information Technology (21.04.2020);
  • Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013);

The alignment of AWS with FINMA requirements demonstrates our continuous commitment to meeting the heightened expectations for cloud service providers set by Swiss financial services regulators and customers. Customers can use the FINMA report to conduct their due diligence, which may minimize the effort and costs required for compliance. The FINMA report for AWS is now available free of charge to AWS customers within the AWS Artifact. More information on how to download the FINMA report is available here.

Some useful resources related to FINMA:

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the scope of our FINMA program in the future based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions about the FINMA report.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Want more AWS Security how-to content, news, and feature announcements? Follow us on Twitter.

Author

Niyaz Noor

Niyaz is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS, leading multiple security certification programs across the Asia Pacific, Japan, and Europe Regions. During his career, he has helped multiple cloud service providers obtain global and regional security certification. He is passionate about delivering programs that build customers’ trust and provide them assurance on cloud security.

Announcing Cloud Audit Academy AWS-specific for audit and compliance teams

Post Syndicated from Chad Woolf original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/announcing-cloud-audit-academy-aws-specific-for-audit-and-compliance-teams/

Today, I’m pleased to announce the launch of Cloud Audit Academy AWS-specific (CAA AWS-specific). This is a new, accelerated training program for auditing AWS Cloud implementations, and is designed for auditors, regulators, or anyone working within a control framework.

Over the past few years, auditing security in the cloud has become one of the fastest growing questions among Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers, across multiple industries and all around the world. Here are the two pain points that I hear about most often:

  • Engineering teams want to move regulatory frameworks compliant workloads to AWS to take advantage of its innovation capabilities, but security and risk teams are uncertain how AWS can help them meet their compliance requirements through audits.
  • Compliance teams want to effectively audit the cloud environments and take advantage of the available security control options that are built into the cloud, but the legacy audit processes and control frameworks are built for an on-premises environment. The differences require some reconciliation and improvement work to be done on compliance programs, audit processes, and auditor training.

To help address these issues for not only AWS customers but for any auditor or compliance team facing cloud migration, we announced Cloud Audit Academy Cloud Agnostic (CAA Cloud Agnostic) at re:Inforce 2019. This foundational, first-of-its-kind, course provides baseline knowledge on auditing in the cloud and in understanding the differences in control operation, design, and auditing. It is cloud agnostic and can benefit security and compliance professionals in any industry—including independent third-party auditors. Since its launch in June 2019, 1,400 students have followed this cloud audit learning path, with 91 percent of participants saying that they would recommend the workshop to others.

So today we’re releasing the next phase of that education program, Cloud Audit Academy AWS-specific. Offered virtually or in-person, CAA AWS-specific is an instructor-led workshop on addressing risks and auditing security in the AWS Cloud, with a focus on the security and audit tools provided by AWS. All instructors have professional audit industry experience, current audit credentials, and maintain AWS Solutions Architect credentials.

Here are four things to know about CAA AWS-specific and what it has to offer audit and compliance teams:

  1. Content was created with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
    PricewaterhouseCoopers worked with us to develop the curriculum content, bringing their expertise in independent risk and control auditing.
     
    “With so many of our customers already in the cloud—or ready to be—we’ve seen a huge increase in the need to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. We’re excited to have combined our risk and controls experience with the power of AWS to create a curriculum in which customers can not only [leverage AWS to help them] meet their compliance needs, but unlock the total value of their cloud investment.” – Paige Hayes, Global Account Leader at PwC

  2. Attendees earn continuing professional education credits
    Based on feedback from CAA Cloud Agnostic, we now offer continuing professional education (CPE) credits to attendees. Completion of CAA AWS-specific will allow attendees to earn 28 CPE credits towards any of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or (ISC)², certifications, and 18 CPE credits towards any Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC).

  3. Training helps boost confidence when auditing the AWS cloud
    Our customers have proven repeatedly that running sensitive workloads in AWS can be more secure than in on-premises environments. However, a lack of knowledge and updated processes for implementing, monitoring, and proving compliance in the cloud has caused some difficulty. Through CAA AWS-specific, you will get critical training to become more comfortable and confident knowing how to audit the AWS environment with precision.

    “Our FSI customer conversations are often focused on security and compliance controls. Leveraging the Cloud Audit Academy enables our team to educate the internal and external auditors of our customers. CAA provides them the necessary tools and knowledge to evaluate and gain comfort with their AWS control environment firsthand. The varying depth and levels focus on everything from basic cloud auditing to diving deeper into the domains which align with our governance and control domains. We reference key AWS services that customers can utilize to create an effective control environment that [helps to meet their] regulatory and audit expectations.” – Jeff (Axe) Axelrad, Compliance Manager, AWS Financial Services

  4. Training enables the governance, risk, and compliance professional
    In four days of CAA AWS-specific, you’ll become more comfortable with topics like control domains, network management, vulnerability management, logging and monitoring, incident response, and general knowledge about compliance controls in the cloud.

    “In addition to [using AWS to help support and maintain their compliance], our customers need to be able to clearly communicate with their external auditors and regulators HOW compliance is achieved. CAA doesn’t teach auditors how to audit, but rather accelerates the learning necessary to understand specifically how the control landscape changes.” – Jesse Skibbe, Sr. Practice Manager, AWS Professional Services

CAA Cloud Agnostic provides some foundational concepts and is a prerequisite to CAA AWS-specific. It is available for free online at our AWS Training and Certification learning library, or you can contact your account manager to have a one-day instructor-led training session in person.

If it sounds like Cloud Audit Academy training would benefit you and your team, contact our AWS Security Assurance Services team or contact your AWS account manager. For more information, check out the newly updated Security Audit Learning Path.

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Author

Chad Woolf

Chad joined Amazon in 2010 and built the AWS compliance functions from the ground up, including audit and certifications, privacy, contract compliance, control automation engineering and security process monitoring. Chad’s work also includes enabling public sector and regulated industry adoption of the AWS Cloud, compliance with complex privacy regulations such as GDPR and operating a trade and product compliance team in conjunction with global region expansion. Prior to joining AWS, Chad spent 12 years with Ernst & Young as a Senior Manager working directly with Fortune 100 companies consulting on IT process, security, risk, and vendor management advisory work, as well as designing and deploying global security and assurance software solutions. Chad holds a Masters of Information Systems Management and a Bachelors of Accounting from Brigham Young University, Utah. Follow Chad on Twitter