Tag Archives: Cloud Adoption

New IDC whitepaper released – Trusted Cloud: Overcoming the Tension Between Data Sovereignty and Accelerated Digital Transformation

2022-04-28 Marta Taggart

Post Syndicated from Marta Taggart original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/new-idc-whitepaper-released-trusted-cloud-overcoming-the-tension-between-data-sovereignty-and-accelerated-digital-transformation/

A new International Data Corporation (IDC) whitepaper sponsored by AWS, Trusted Cloud: Overcoming the Tension Between Data Sovereignty and Accelerated Digital Transformation, examines the importance of the cloud in building the future of digital EU organizations. IDC predicts that 70% of CEOs of large European organizations will be incentivized to generate at least 40% of their revenues from digital by 2025, which means they have to accelerate their digital transformation. In a 2022 IDC survey of CEOs across Europe, 46% of European CEOs will accelerate the shift to cloud as their most strategic IT initiative in 2022.

In the whitepaper, IDC offers perspectives on how operational effectiveness, digital investment, and ultimately business growth need to be balanced with data sovereignty requirements. IDC defines data sovereignty as “a subset of digital sovereignty. It is the concept of data being subject to the laws and governance structures within the country it is collected or pertains to.”

IDC provides a perspective on some of the current discourse on cloud data sovereignty, including extraterritorial reach of foreign intelligence under national security laws, and the level of protection for individuals’ privacy in-country or with cross-border data transfer. The Schrems II decision and its implications with respect to personal data transfers between the EU and US has left many organizations grappling with how to comply with their legal requirements when transferring data outside the EU.

IDC provides the following background on controls in the cloud:

Cloud providers do not have unrestricted access to customer data in the cloud. Organizations retain all ownership and control of their data. Through credential and permission settings, the customer is the controller of who has access to their data.
Cloud providers use a rigorous set of organizational and technical controls based on least privilege to protect data from unauthorized access and inappropriate use.
Most cloud service operations, including maintenance and trouble-shooting, are fully automated. Should human access to customer data be required, it is temporary and limited to what is necessary to provide the contracted service to the customer. All access should be strictly logged, monitored, and audited to verify that activity is valid and compliant.
Technical controls such as encryption and key management assume greater importance. Encryption is considered fundamental to data protection best practices and highly recommended by regulators. Encrypted data processed in memory within hardware-based trusted execution environment (TEEs), also known as enclaves, can alleviate these regulatory concerns by rendering sensitive information invisible to host operating systems and cloud providers. The AWS Nitro System, the underlying platform that runs Amazon EC2 instances, is an industry example that provides such protection capability.
Independent accreditation against official standards are a recognized basis for assessing adherence to privacy and security practices. Approved by the European Data Protection Board, the EU Cloud Code of Conduct and CISPE’s Code of Conduct for Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers provide an accountability framework to help demonstrate compliance with processor obligations under GDPR Article 28. Whilst not required for GDPR compliance, CISPE requires accredited cloud providers to offer customers the option to retain all personal data in their customer content in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Greater data control and security is often cited as a driver to hosting data in-country. However, IDC notes that the physical location of the data has no bearing on mitigating data risk to cyber threats. Data residency can run counter to an organization’s objectives for security and resilience. More and more European organizations now are trusting the cloud for their security needs, as many organizations simply do not have the resource and expertise to provide the same security benefits as large cloud providers can.

For more information about how to translate your data sovereignty requirements into an actionable business and IT strategy, read the full IDC whitepaper Trusted Cloud: Overcoming the Tension Between Data Sovereignty and Accelerated Digital Transformation. You can also read more about AWS commitments to protect EU customers’ data on our EU data protection webpage.

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.

The Five Ws episode 2: Data Classification whitepaper

2021-11-01 Jana Kay

Post Syndicated from Jana Kay original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/the-five-ws-episode-2-data-classification-whitepaper/

AWS whitepapers are a great way to expand your knowledge of the cloud. Authored by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the AWS community, they provide in-depth content that often addresses specific customer situations.

We’re featuring some of our whitepapers in a new video series, The Five Ws. These short videos outline the who, what, when, where, and why of each whitepaper so you can decide whether to dig into it further.

The second whitepaper we’re featuring is Data Classification: Secure Cloud Adoption. This paper provides insight into data classification categories for organizations to consider when moving data to the cloud—and how implementing a data classification program can simplify cloud adoption and management. It outlines a process to build a data classification program, shares examples of data and the corresponding category the data may fall into, and outlines practices and models currently implemented by global first movers and early adopters. The paper also includes data classification and privacy considerations. Note: It’s important to use internationally recognized standards and frameworks when developing your own data classification rules. For more details on the Five Ws of Data Classification: Security Cloud Adoption, check out the video.

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.

How AWS can help your US federal agency meet the executive order on improving the nation’s cybersecurity

2021-08-13 Michael Cotton

Post Syndicated from Michael Cotton original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-aws-can-help-your-us-federal-agency-meet-the-executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/

AWS can support your information security modernization program to meet the President’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (issued May 12^th, 2021). When working with AWS, a US federal agency gains access to resources, expertise, technology, professional services, and our AWS Partner Network (APN), which can help the agency meet the security and compliance requirements of the executive order.

For federal agencies, the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity requires an update to agency plans to prioritize cloud adoption, identify the most sensitive data and update the protections for that data, encrypt data at rest and in transit, implement multi-factor authentication, and meet expanded logging requirements. It also introduces Zero Trust Architectures and, for the first time, requires an agency to develop plans implementing Zero Trust concepts.

This post focuses on how AWS can help you plan for and accelerate cloud adoption. In the rest of the series you’ll learn how AWS offers guidance for building architectures with a Zero Trust security model, multi-factor authentication, encryption for data at-rest and in-transit, and logging capabilities required to increase visibility for security and compliance purposes.

Prioritize the adoption and use of cloud technologies

AWS has developed multiple frameworks to help you plan your migration to AWS and establish a structured, programmatic approach to AWS adoption. We provide a variety of tools, including server, data, and database features, to rapidly migrate various types of applications from on-premises to AWS. The following lists include links and helpful information regarding the ways AWS can help accelerate your cloud adoption.

Planning tools

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) – We developed the AWS CAF to assist your organization in developing and implementing efficient and effective plans for cloud adoption. The guidance and best practices provided by the framework help you build a comprehensive approach to cloud computing across your organization, and throughout the IT lifecycle. Using the AWS CAF will help you realize measurable business benefits from cloud adoption faster, and with less risk.
Migration Evaluator – You can build a data-driven business case for your cloud adoption on AWS by using our Migration Evaluator (formerly TSO Logic) to gain access to insights and help accelerate decision-making for migration to AWS.
AWS Migration Acceleration Program – This program assists your organization with migrating to the cloud by providing you training, professional services, and service credits to streamline your migration, helping your agency more quickly decommission legacy hardware, software, and data centers.

AWS services and technologies for migration

AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) – This service allows you to replicate entire servers to AWS using block-level replication, performs tests to verify the migration, and executes the cutover to AWS. This is the simplest and fastest method to migrate to AWS.
AWS CloudEndure Migration Factory Solution – This solution enables you to replicate entire servers to AWS using block-level replication and executes the cutover to AWS. This solution is designed to coordinate and automate manual processes for large-scale migrations involving a substantial number of servers.
AWS Server Migration Service – This is an agentless service that automates the migration of your on-premises VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V/SCVMM, and Azure virtual machines to AWS. It replicates existing servers as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), enabling you to transition more quickly and easily to AWS.
AWS Database Migration Service – This service automates replication of your on-premises databases to AWS, making it much easier for you to migrate large and complex applications to AWS with minimal downtime.
AWS DataSync – This is an online data transfer service that simplifies, automates, and accelerates moving your data between on-premises storage systems and AWS.
VMware Cloud on AWS – This service simplifies and speeds up your migration to AWS by enabling your agency to use the same VMware Cloud Foundation technologies across your on-premises environments and in the AWS Cloud. VMware workloads running on AWS have access to more than 200 AWS services, making it easier to move and modernize applications without having to purchase new hardware, rewrite applications, or modify your operations.
AWS Snow Family – These services provide devices that can physically transport exabytes of data into and out of AWS. These devices are fully encrypted and integrate with AWS security, monitoring, storage management, and computing capabilities to help accelerate your migration of large data sets to AWS.

AWS Professional Services

AWS Professional Services – Use the AWS Cloud to more effectively reach your constituents and better achieve your core mission. This is a global team of experts that can help you realize your desired business outcomes when using the AWS Cloud. Each offering delivers a set of activities, best practices, and documentation reflecting our experience supporting hundreds of customers in their journey to the AWS Cloud.

AWS Partners

AWS Government Competency Partners – This page identifies partners who have demonstrated their ability to help government customers accelerate their migration of applications and legacy infrastructure to AWS.

AWS has solutions and partners to assist in your planning and accelerating your migration to the cloud. We can help you develop integrated, cost-effective solutions to help secure your environment and implement the executive order requirements. In short, AWS is ready to help you meet the accelerated timeline goals set in this executive order.

Next steps

For further reading, see the blog post Zero Trust architectures: An AWS perspective, and to learn more about how AWS can help you meet the requirements of the executive order, see the other post in this series:

How US federal agencies can use AWS to improve logging and log retention