Tag Archives: Foundational (100)

AWS achieves GSMA security certification for US East (Ohio) Region

Post Syndicated from Janice Leung original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-achieves-gsma-security-certification-for-us-east-ohio-region/

We continue to expand the scope of our assurance programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and are pleased to announce that our US East (Ohio) Region (us-east-2) is now certified by the GSM Association (GSMA) under its Security Accreditation Scheme Subscription Management (SAS-SM) with scope Data Center Operations and Management (DCOM). This alignment with GSMA requirements demonstrates our continuous commitment to adhere to the heightened expectations for cloud service providers. AWS customers who provide 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 US East (Ohio) Region.

As of this writing, 128 services offered in the US East (Ohio) Region are in scope of this certification. For up-to-date information, including when additional services are added, see the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program and choose GSMA.

AWS was evaluated by independent third-party auditors chosen by GSMA. The Certificate of Compliance illustrating the AWS 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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Author

Janice Leung

Janice is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS, based in New York. She leads various security audit programs across Europe. She previously worked in security assurance and technology risk management in the financial industry for 10 years.

Author

Karthik Amrutesh

Karthik is a Senior Manager, Security Assurance at AWS, based in New York. He leads a team responsible for audits, attestations, and certifications across the European Union. Karthik has previously worked in risk management, security assurance, and technology audits for over 18 years.

New Standard Contractual Clauses now part of the AWS GDPR Data Processing Addendum for customers

Post Syndicated from Stéphane Ducable original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/new-standard-contractual-clauses-now-part-of-the-aws-gdpr-data-processing-addendum-for-customers/

Today, we’re happy to announce an update to our online AWS GDPR Data Processing Addendum (AWS GDPR DPA) and our online Service Terms to include the new Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) that the European Commission (EC) adopted in June 2021. The EC-approved SCCs give our customers the ability to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when they transfer personal data subject to GDPR to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) that haven’t received an EC adequacy decision (third countries). The new SCCs are now better adapted to how our customers operate their applications or run their workloads in the cloud, because they cover different transfer scenarios, and also provide enhanced safeguards for data transfers.

Achieving compliance with GDPR is critical for hundreds of thousands of AWS customers and AWS. The new SCCs allow all AWS customers that are controllers or processors under GDPR to continue to transfer personal data from their AWS accounts in compliance with GDPR. As part of the online Service Terms, the new SCCs will apply automatically whenever an AWS customer uses AWS services to transfer customer data to third countries.

The updated AWS GDPR DPA incorporating the new SCCs supplements our announcement in February 2021 of strengthened commitments to protect customer data, such as challenging law enforcement requests that conflict with EU law. We have also published the blog post How AWS is helping EU customers navigate the new normal for data protection, and the whitepaper Navigating Compliance with EU Data Transfer Requirements to help AWS customers conduct their data transfer assessments and comply with GDPR, the Schrems II ruling, and the recommendations issued by the European Data Protection Board. AWS is constantly working to ensure that our customers can enjoy the benefits of AWS everywhere they operate, and we welcome the new SCCs because they enable our customers to continue using AWS services in compliance with GDPR. If you have questions or need more information, visit our EU Data Protection page and our GDPR Center.

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Author

Stéphane Ducable

Stéphane is Vice President of Public Policy – EMEA at AWS. He is focused on increasing awareness of the benefits of adopting cloud computing technology across the EMEA region.

Protect your remote workforce by using a managed DNS firewall and network firewall

Post Syndicated from Patrick Duffy original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/protect-your-remote-workforce-by-using-a-managed-dns-firewall-and-network-firewall/

More of our customers are adopting flexible work-from-home and remote work strategies that use virtual desktop solutions, such as Amazon WorkSpaces and Amazon AppStream 2.0, to deliver their user applications. Securing these workloads benefits from a layered approach, and this post focuses on protecting your users at the network level. Customers can now apply these security measures by using Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall and AWS Network Firewall, two managed services that provide layered protection for the customer’s virtual private cloud (VPC). This blog post provides recommendations for how you can build network protection for your remote workforce by using DNS Firewall and Network Firewall.

Overview

DNS Firewall helps you block DNS queries that are made for known malicious domains, while allowing DNS queries to trusted domains. DNS Firewall has a simple deployment model that makes it straightforward for you to start protecting your VPCs by using managed domain lists, as well as custom domain lists. With DNS Firewall, you can filter and regulate outbound DNS requests. The service inspects DNS requests that are handled by Route 53 Resolver and applies actions that you define to allow or block requests.

DNS Firewall consists of domain lists and rule groups. Domain lists include custom domain lists that you create and AWS managed domain lists. Rule groups are associated with VPCs and control the response for domain lists that you choose. You can configure rule groups at scale by using AWS Firewall Manager. Rule groups process in priority order and stop processing after a rule is matched.

Network Firewall helps customers protect their VPCs by protecting the workload at the network layer. Network Firewall is an automatically scaling, highly available service that simplifies deployment and management for network administrators. With Network Firewall, you can perform inspection for inbound traffic, outbound traffic, traffic between VPCs, and traffic between VPCs and AWS Direct Connect or AWS VPN traffic. You can deploy stateless rules to allow or deny traffic based on the protocol, source and destination ports, and source and destination IP addresses. Additionally, you can deploy stateful rules that allow or block traffic based on domain lists, standard rule groups, or Suricata compatible intrusion prevention system (IPS) rules.

To configure Network Firewall, you need to create Network Firewall rule groups, a Network Firewall policy, and finally, a network firewall. Rule groups consist of stateless and stateful rule groups. For both types of rule groups, you need to estimate the capacity when you create the rule group. See the Network Firewall Developer Guide to learn how to estimate the capacity that is needed for the stateless and stateful rule engines.

This post shows you how to configure DNS Firewall and Network Firewall to protect your workload. You will learn how to create rules that prevent DNS queries to unapproved DNS servers, and that block resources by protocol, domain, and IP address. For the purposes of this post, we’ll show you how to protect a workload consisting of two Microsoft Active Directory domain controllers, an application server running QuickBooks, and Amazon WorkSpaces to deliver the QuickBooks application to end users, as shown in Figure 1.
 

Figure 1: An example architecture that includes domain controllers and QuickBooks hosted on EC2 and Amazon WorkSpaces for user virtual desktops

Figure 1: An example architecture that includes domain controllers and QuickBooks hosted on EC2 and Amazon WorkSpaces for user virtual desktops

Configure DNS Firewall

DNS Firewall domain lists currently include two managed lists to block malware and botnet command-and-control networks, and you can also bring your own list. Your list can include any domain names that you have found to be malicious and any domains that you don’t want your workloads connecting to.

To configure DNS Firewall domain lists (console)

  1. Open the Amazon VPC console.
  2. In the navigation pane, under DNS Firewall, choose Domain lists.
  3. Choose Add domain list to configure a customer-owned domain list.
  4. In the domain list builder dialog box, do the following.
    1. Under Domain list name, enter a name.
    2. In the second dialog box, enter the list of domains you want to allow or block.
    3. Choose Add domain list.

When you create a domain list, you can enter a list of domains you want to block or allow. You also have the option to upload your domains by using a bulk upload. You can use wildcards when you add domains for DNS Firewall. Figure 2 shows an example of a custom domain list that matches the root domain and any subdomain of box.com, dropbox.com, and sharefile.com, to prevent users from using these file sharing platforms.
 

Figure 2: Domains added to a customer-owned domain list

Figure 2: Domains added to a customer-owned domain list

To configure DNS Firewall rule groups (console)

  1. Open the Amazon VPC console.
  2. In the navigation pane, under DNS Firewall, choose Rule group.
  3. Choose Create rule group to apply actions to domain lists.
  4. Enter a rule group name and optional description.
  5. Choose Add rule to add a managed or customer-owned domain list, and do the following.
    1. Enter a rule name and optional description.
    2. Choose Add my own domain list or Add AWS managed domain list.
    3. Select the desired domain list.
    4. Choose an action, and then choose Next.
  6. (Optional) Change the rule priority.
  7. (Optional) Add tags.
  8. Choose Create rule group.

When you create your rule group, you attach rules and set an action and priority for the rule. You can set rule actions to Allow, Block, or Alert. When you set the action to Block, you can return the following responses:

  • NODATA – Returns no response.
  • NXDOMAIN – Returns an unknown domain response.
  • OVERRIDE – Returns a custom CNAME response.

Figure 3 shows rules attached to the DNS firewall.
 

Figure 3: DNS Firewall rules

Figure 3: DNS Firewall rules

To associate your rule group to a VPC (console)

  1. Open the Amazon VPC console.
  2. In the navigation pane, under DNS Firewall, choose Rule group.
  3. Select the desired rule group.
  4. Choose Associated VPCs, and then choose Associate VPC.
  5. Select one or more VPCs, and then choose Associate.

The rule group will filter your DNS requests to Route 53 Resolver. Set your DNS servers forwarders to use your Route 53 Resolver.

To configure logging for your firewall’s activity, navigate to the Route 53 console and select your VPC under the Resolver section. You can configure multiple logging options, if required. You can choose to log to Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), or Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose. Select the VPC that you want to log queries for and add any tags that you require.

Configure Network Firewall

In this section, you’ll learn how to create Network Firewall rule groups, a firewall policy, and a network firewall.

Configure rule groups

Stateless rule groups are straightforward evaluations of a source and destination IP address, protocol, and port. It’s important to note that stateless rules don’t perform any deep inspection of network traffic.

Stateless rules have three options:

  • Pass – Pass the packet without further inspection.
  • Drop – Drop the packet.
  • Forward – Forward the packet to stateful rule groups.

Stateless rules inspect each packet in isolation in the order of priority and stop processing when a rule has been matched. This example doesn’t use a stateless rule, and simply uses the default firewall action to forward all traffic to stateful rule groups.

Stateful rule groups support deep packet inspection, traffic logging, and more complex rules. Stateful rule groups evaluate traffic based on standard rules, domain rules or Suricata rules. Depending on the type of rule that you use, you can pass, drop, or create alerts on the traffic that is inspected.

To create a rule group (console)

  1. Open the Amazon VPC console.
  2. In the navigation pane, under AWS Network Firewall, choose Network Firewall rule groups.
  3. Choose Create Network Firewall rule group.
  4. Choose Stateful rule group or Stateless rule group.
  5. Enter the desired settings.
  6. Choose Create stateful rule group.

The example in Figure 4 uses standard rules to block outbound and inbound Server Message Block (SMB), Secure Shell (SSH), Network Time Protocol (NTP), DNS, and Kerberos traffic, which are common protocols used in our example workload. Network Firewall doesn’t inspect traffic between subnets within the same VPC or over VPC peering, so these rules won’t block local traffic. You can add rules with the Pass action to allow traffic to and from trusted networks.
 

Figure 4: Standard rules created to block unauthorized SMB, SSH, NTP, DNS, and Kerberos traffic

Figure 4: Standard rules created to block unauthorized SMB, SSH, NTP, DNS, and Kerberos traffic

Blocking outbound DNS requests is a common strategy to verify that DNS traffic resolves only from local resolvers, such as your DNS server or the Route 53 Resolver. You can also use these rules to prevent inbound traffic to your VPC-hosted resources, as an additional layer of security beyond security groups. If a security group erroneously allows SMB access to a file server from external sources, Network Firewall will drop this traffic based on these rules.

Even though the DNS Firewall policy described in this blog post will block DNS queries for unauthorized sharing platforms, some users might attempt to bypass this block by modifying the HOSTS file on their Amazon WorkSpace. To counter this risk, you can add a domain rule to your firewall policy to block the box.com, dropbox.com, and sharefile.com domains, as shown in Figure 5.
 

Figure 5: A domain list rule to block box.com, dropbox.com, and sharefile.com

Figure 5: A domain list rule to block box.com, dropbox.com, and sharefile.com

Configure firewall policy

You can use firewall policies to attach stateless and stateful rule groups to a single policy that is used by one or more network firewalls. Attach your rule groups to this policy and set your preferred default stateless actions. The default stateless actions will apply to any packets that don’t match a stateless rule group within the policy. You can choose separate actions for full packets and fragmented packets, depending on your needs, as shown in Figure 6.
 

Figure 6: Stateful rule groups attached to a firewall policy

Figure 6: Stateful rule groups attached to a firewall policy

You can choose to forward the traffic to be processed by any stateful rule groups that you have attached to your firewall policy. To bypass any stateful rule groups, you can select the Pass option.

To create a firewall policy (console)

  1. Open the Amazon VPC console.
  2. In the navigation pane, under AWS Network Firewall, choose Firewall policies.
  3. Choose Create firewall policy.
  4. Enter a name and description for the policy.
  5. Choose Add rule groups.
    1. Select the stateless default actions you want to use.
    2. For any stateless or stateful rule groups, choose Add rule groups to add any rule groups that you want to use.
  6. (Optional) Add tags.
  7. Choose Create firewall policy.

Configure a network firewall

Configuring the network firewall requires you to attach the firewall to a VPC and select at least one subnet.

To create a network firewall (console)

  1. Open the Amazon VPC console.
  2. In the navigation pane, under AWS Network Firewall, choose Firewalls.
  3. Choose Create firewall.
  4. Under Firewall details, do the following:
    1. Enter a name for the firewall.
    2. Select the VPC.
    3. Select one or more Availability Zones and subnets, as needed.
  5. Under Associated firewall policy, do the following:
    1. Choose Associate an existing firewall policy.
    2. Select the firewall policy.
  6. (Optional) Add tags.
  7. Choose Create firewall.

Two subnets in separate Availability Zones are used for the network firewall example shown in Figure 7, to provide high availability.
 

Figure 7: A network firewall configuration that includes multiple subnets

Figure 7: A network firewall configuration that includes multiple subnets

After the firewall is in the ready state, you’ll be able to see the endpoint IDs of the firewall endpoints, as shown in Figure 8. The endpoint IDs are needed when you update VPC route tables.
 

Figure 8: Firewall endpoint IDs

Figure 8: Firewall endpoint IDs

You can configure alert logs, flow logs, or both to be sent to Amazon S3, CloudWatch log groups, or Kinesis Data Firehose. Administrators configure alert logging to build proactive alerting and flow logging to use in troubleshooting and analysis.

Finalize the setup

After the firewall is created and ready, the last step to complete setup is to update the VPC route tables. Update your routing in the VPC to route traffic through the new network firewall endpoints. Update the public subnets route table to direct traffic to the firewall endpoint in the same Availability Zone. Update the internet gateway route to direct traffic to the firewall endpoints in the matching Availability Zone for public subnets. These routes are shown in Figure 9.
 

Figure 9: Network diagram of the firewall solution

Figure 9: Network diagram of the firewall solution

In this example architecture, Amazon WorkSpaces users are able to connect directly between private subnet 1 and private subnet 2 to access local resources. Security groups and Windows authentication control access from WorkSpaces to EC2-hosted workloads such as Active Directory, file servers, and SQL applications. For example, Microsoft Active Directory domain controllers are added to a security group that allows inbound ports 53, 389, and 445, as shown in Figure 10.
 

Figure 10: Domain controller security group inbound rules

Figure 10: Domain controller security group inbound rules

Traffic from WorkSpaces will first resolve DNS requests by using the Active Directory domain controller. The domain controller uses the local Route 53 Resolver as a DNS forwarder, which DNS Firewall protects. Network traffic then flows from the private subnet to the NAT gateway, through the network firewall to the internet gateway. Response traffic flows back from the internet gateway to the network firewall, then to the NAT gateway, and finally to the user WorkSpace. This workflow is shown in Figure 11.
 

Figure 11: Traffic flow for allowed traffic

Figure 11: Traffic flow for allowed traffic

If a user attempts to connect to blocked internet resources, such as box.com, a botnet, or a malware domain, this will result in a NXDOMAIN response from DNS Firewall, and the connection will not proceed any further. This blocked traffic flow is shown in Figure 12.
  

Figure 12: Traffic flow when blocked by DNS Firewall

Figure 12: Traffic flow when blocked by DNS Firewall

If a user attempts to initiate a DNS request to a public DNS server or attempts to access a public file server, this will result in a dropped connection by Network Firewall. The traffic will flow as expected from the user WorkSpace to the NAT gateway and from the NAT gateway to the network firewall, which inspects the traffic. The network firewall then drops the traffic when it matches a rule with the drop or block action, as shown in Figure 13. This configuration helps to ensure that your private resources only use approved DNS servers and internet resources. Network Firewall will block unapproved domains and restricted protocols that use standard rules.
 

Figure 13: Traffic flow when blocked by Network Firewall

Figure 13: Traffic flow when blocked by Network Firewall

Take extra care to associate a route table with your internet gateway to route private subnet traffic to your firewall endpoints; otherwise, response traffic won’t make it back to your private subnets. Traffic will route from the private subnet up through the NAT gateway in its Availability Zone. The NAT gateway will pass the traffic to the network firewall endpoint in the same Availability Zone, which will process the rules and send allowed traffic to the internet gateway for the VPC. By using this method, you can block outbound network traffic with criteria that are more advanced than what is allowed by network ACLs.

Conclusion

Amazon Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall and AWS Network Firewall help you protect your VPC workloads by inspecting network traffic and applying deep packet inspection rules to block unwanted traffic. This post focused on implementing Network Firewall in a virtual desktop workload that spans multiple Availability Zones. You’ve seen how to deploy a network firewall and update your VPC route tables. This solution can help increase the security of your workloads in AWS. If you have multiple VPCs to protect, consider enforcing your policies at scale by using AWS Firewall Manager, as outlined in this blog post.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, start a new thread on the AWS Network Firewall forum or contact AWS Support.

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Author

Patrick Duffy

Patrick is a Solutions Architect in the Small Medium Business (SMB) segment at AWS. He is passionate about raising awareness and increasing security of AWS workloads. Outside work, he loves to travel and try new cuisines and enjoys a match in Magic Arena or Overwatch.

Using AWS Serverless to Power Event Management Applications

Post Syndicated from Cheryl Joseph original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/using-aws-serverless-to-power-event-management-applications/

Most large events have common activities such as event registration, check-in upon arrival, and requesting of amenities. When designing applications, factors such as high availability, low latency, reliability, and security must be considered.

In this blog post, we’d like to show how Amazon Web Services (AWS) can assist you in event planning activities. We’ll share an architecture that follows best practices, and one that can be used in developing other solutions.

Serverless to the Rescue

Serverless architecture enables you to focus on your application development without having to worry about managing servers and runtimes. You can quickly build, fix, and add new features to your applications. A microservices-based approach provides you the ability to scale and optimize each component of your event management application.

Let’s start by looking at some activities that an event guest might perform, and how they might be displayed in a mobile application:

  • Event registration: A guest can register either from a website or from a mobile device, see Figure 1. Events might have heavy traffic initially, or a large push toward the end. This requires building applications that are highly scalable.
Figure 1. Event registration

Figure 1. Event registration

  • Check-In: Check-In can be a manual and cumbersome process – some mobile options are shown in Figure 2. Attendees must queue up to register, pick up badges, receive agendas, and collect other meeting materials.
Figure 2. Guest check-in kiosk

Figure 2. Guest check-in kiosk

  • Guest requests: While the event is underway, a participant might request hand-outs or want to purchase food or beverages, see Figure 3.
Figure 3. Guest requests

Figure 3. Guest requests

  • Session notification: At popular events, there are some sessions that fill up quickly. Guests must queue up to get into the session. Figure 4 shows a notification screen.
Figure 4. Session notification on guest device

Figure 4. Session notification on guest device

Solution overview for event planning

The serverless architecture presented here is highly scalable and provides low latency. It follows the Serverless Application Lens of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. This enables you to build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient applications.

Frontend user interface using AWS Amplify

The event website is hosted on AWS Amplify. Amplify provides a fully managed service for deploying and hosting applications with built-in CI/CD workflows. An alternative for hosting the event website could be Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) or even by provisioning Amazon EC2 instances. However, Amplify is well suited for native mobile apps and JavaScript-based web apps.

The event website uses Amazon Cognito for management of user authentication and authorization. Amazon Cognito is a good choice here as it allows federating with external identity providers.

Backend serverless microservices

The backend of the event management application uses Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda. They provide the ability to expose API operations. If the application has a flurry of requests coming in together, the backend serverless microservices will scale up or down seamlessly. However, there are service limits, and it is important to keep these in mind while designing your applications.

Amazon DynamoDB is the NoSQL database, which saves the guest registration data and other event-related information. DynamoDB is a good fit here, as it delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale and provides high availability, fault tolerance, and automatic capacity scaling.

Amazon Pinpoint is used to send notifications to guests via email and SMS. Amazon Pinpoint allows your app to connect with customers over channels like email, SMS, push, or voice.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the activities we’ve outlined.

Solution architecture – Event registration and check-in

Figure 5. Event registration and check-in

Figure 5. Event registration and check-in

Numbered items following refer to Figure 5:

  1. Developers upload code to AWS CodeCommit
  2. CodeCommit pushes the code to Amplify
  3. Guests access the website via Amazon Route 53
  4. Route 53 resolves incoming requests and forwards them to Amplify
  5. Guest authentication is performed by Amazon Cognito user pools
  6. Amplify sends the REST API requests to API Gateway
  7. API Gateway uses Amazon Cognito user pools as the authorizer
  8. API Gateway proxies the request to Lambda
  9. Lambda stores guest data in DynamoDB
  10. Lambda uses Amazon Pinpoint to notify the guest

The guest registration process begins with loading the web application hosted on Amplify. The application creates the user in the Amazon Cognito user pool and routes the request to API Gateway to complete the registration process. Amazon Cognito integrates with third-party authentication systems such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon. This allows guests to use their existing social media accounts to register.

The guest check-in process consists of loading a web application onto kiosks. Guest information is saved in a DynamoDB table. Upon registration, a QR code is sent to the guests, then scanned upon arrival at a kiosk. Guest information is then retrieved from a DynamoDB table. This allows guests to print their badges and other event materials.

Well-Architected guidance:

  • Enable active tracing with AWS X-Ray to provide distributed tracing capabilities and visual service maps for faster troubleshooting of the backend APIs.
  • For Lambda functions, follow least-privileged access and only allow the access required to perform a given operation.
  • Throttle API operations to enforce access patterns established by the event management application service contract.
  • Set appropriate logging levels and remove unnecessary logging information to optimize log ingestion. Use environment variables to control application logging level.

Solution architecture – Guest requests

Figure 6. Guest requests

Figure 6. Guest requests

Numbered items refer to Figure 6:

  1. Guests access the website via Route 53
  2. Route 53 resolves incoming requests and forwards them to Amplify
  3. Guest authentication is performed by Amazon Cognito user pools
  4. Amplify sends the REST API requests to API Gateway
  5. API Gateway uses Amazon Cognito user pools as the authorizer
  6. API Gateway proxies the request to Lambda
  7. Lambda validates and stores guest data in DynamoDB
  8. Lambda uses Amazon Pinpoint to notify the guest
  9. Amazon DynamoDB Streams are enabled which triggers a Lambda function
  10. Lambda notifies the employees via Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) to fulfill the request

Once a guest request is made for session handouts or food or beverages, it is stored in DynamoDB. DynamoDB Streams are enabled, see Figure 7, which captures a time-ordered sequence of item-level modifications in a DynamoDB table. It durably stores the information for up to 24 hours. This generates an event, which triggers a Lambda function. The Lambda function sends an SNS notification via SMS or email to the event employees who can address the guest requests.

Figure 7. Sample DynamoDB Streams record

Figure 7. Sample DynamoDB Streams record

Well-Architected guidance:

  • Standardize application logging across components, and business outcomes
  • Enable caching on API Gateway to improve application performance
  • Use an On-Demand Instance for DynamoDB when traffic is unpredictable, otherwise use provisioned mode when consistent
  • Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) can be used as an in-memory cache to improve read performance

Solution architecture – Session notification

Figure 8. Session notification

Figure 8. Session notification

Numbered items refer to Figure 8:

  1. An Amazon EventBridge rule runs on a schedule and invokes a Lambda function
  2. Lambda retrieves guest and session information from DynamoDB
  3. Lambda notifies the guest via Amazon Pinpoint

Amazon Pinpoint can send notifications to registered guests to let them know when to queue up for the session.

Conclusion

This solution provides a powerful approach for deploying highly scalable applications, while providing low latency and low cost. Build a Serverless Web Application can get you started. Large events require a considerable amount of planning and coordination. We hope the guidance provided here will help you build a scalable and a robust event management application.

17 additional AWS services authorized for DoD workloads in the AWS GovCloud Regions

Post Syndicated from Tyler Harding original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/17-additional-aws-services-authorized-for-dod-workloads-in-the-aws-govcloud-regions/

I’m pleased to announce that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has authorized 17 additional Amazon Web Services (AWS) services and features in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, bringing the total to 105 services and major features that are authorized for use by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). AWS now offers additional services to DoD mission owners in these categories: business applications; computing; containers; cost management; developer tools; management and governance; media services; security, identity, and compliance; and storage.

Why does authorization matter?

DISA authorization of 17 new cloud services enables mission owners to build secure innovative solutions to include systems that process unclassified national security data (for example, Impact Level 5). DISA’s authorization demonstrates that AWS effectively implemented more than 421 security controls by using applicable criteria from NIST SP 800-53 Revision 4, the US General Services Administration’s FedRAMP High baseline, and the DoD Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide.

Recently authorized AWS services at DoD Impact Levels (IL) 4 and 5 include the following:

Business Applications

Compute

Containers

Cost Management

  • AWS Budgets – Set custom budgets to track your cost and usage, from the simplest to the most complex use cases
  • AWS Cost Explorer – An interface that lets you visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time
  • AWS Cost & Usage Report – Itemize usage at the account or organization level by product code, usage type, and operation

Developer Tools

  • AWS CodePipeline – Automate continuous delivery pipelines for fast and reliable updates
  • AWS X-Ray – Analyze and debug production and distributed applications, such as those built using a microservices architecture

Management & Governance

Media Services

  • Amazon Textract – Extract printed text, handwriting, and data from virtually any document

Security, Identity & Compliance

  • Amazon Cognito – Secure user sign-up, sign-in, and access control
  • AWS Security Hub – Centrally view and manage security alerts and automate security checks

Storage

  • AWS Backup – Centrally manage and automate backups across AWS services

Figure 1 shows the IL 4 and IL 5 AWS services that are now authorized for DoD workloads, broken out into functional categories.
 

Figure 1: The AWS services newly authorized by DISA

Figure 1: The AWS services newly authorized by DISA

To learn more about AWS solutions for the DoD, see our AWS solution offerings. Follow the AWS Security Blog for updates on our Services in Scope by Compliance Program. If you have feedback about this blog post, let us know in the Comments section below.

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Author

Tyler Harding

Tyler is the DoD Compliance Program Manager for AWS Security Assurance. He has over 20 years of experience providing information security solutions to the federal civilian, DoD, and intelligence agencies.

AWS achieves ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certification

Post Syndicated from Anastasia Strebkova original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-achieves-iso-iec-27701-2019-certification/

We’re excited to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has achieved ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certification with no findings. This certification is a rigorous third-party independent assessment of the Privacy Information Management System (PIMS) of a cloud service provider.

ISO/IEC 27701:2019 specifies requirements and guidelines to establish and continuously improve a PIMS, including processing of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and is an extension of the ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002 standards for information security management. It provides a set of additional controls and associated guidance that is intended to address public cloud PIMS and PII management requirements that aren’t addressed by the existing ISO/IEC 27002 control set, for both processors and controllers.

The certification demonstrates that a cloud service provider has an effective PIMS in place to support customers, who may be working towards compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other data privacy regulations. The independent third-party assessment of AWS alignment to this internationally recognized code of practice demonstrates that AWS is committed to the privacy and protection of customers’ content and can help customers in pursuing their international and local compliance objectives.

Ernst & Young CertifyPoint issued the certificate on August 11, 2021. The covered AWS Regions are included on the ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certificate, and the full list of AWS services in scope for ISO/IEC 27701:2019 is available on our ISO and CSA STAR Certified webpage. You can view and download our ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certificate online, and in the AWS Management Console through AWS Artifact.

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Author

Anastasia Strebkova

Anastasia is a Security Assurance Manager at Amazon Web Services on the Global Audits team, managing the AWS ISO portfolio. She has previously worked on IT audits, governance, risk, privacy, business continuity, and information security program management for cloud enterprises. Anastasia holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Civil Law from Moscow Law Academy.

AWS introduces changes to access denied errors for easier permissions troubleshooting

Post Syndicated from Guaravee Gandhi original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-introduces-changes-to-access-denied-errors-for-easier-permissions-troubleshooting/

To help you more easily troubleshoot your permissions in Amazon Web Services (AWS), we’re introducing additional context in the access denied error messages. We’ll start to introduce this change in September 2021, and gradually make it available in all AWS services over the next few months. If you’re currently relying on the exact text of the access denied error messages in your existing systems, it’s important to review the details in this post so you can determine any necessary changes that might be required in your environment.

What is the upcoming change in access denied error messages?

We’re adding information about the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy type that’s responsible for the denied access. This enables you to focus on the specific policy type that’s identified, rather than evaluating all IAM policies in your AWS environment when you troubleshoot access-related challenges. As a result of this change, you can more quickly identify the root cause for the denied access and unblock your developers by updating the relevant policies to grant the required access.

For example, when a developer who is trying to perform the CreateFunction action in AWS Lambda is denied access due to a service control policy (SCP) in her AWS organization, she can create a trouble ticket with her central security team, providing the access denied error message and highlighting the policy type that is responsible for the denied access. The security administrator can focus their troubleshooting efforts on SCPs that are related to Lambda, thus saving time and effort on troubleshooting permissions.

The policy types that will be covered in this update are SCPs, VPC endpoint policies, permissions boundaries, session policies, resource-based policies, and identity-based policies.

What should you do to prepare for this change?

If you don’t have any systems relying on the access denied error messages – There’s no action required at this point. As AWS gradually introduces this change, you’ll see additional context about the policy type in your access denied error messages.

If you’ve configured systems to rely on the access denied error messages in AWS – We recommend that you evaluate whether your existing systems and automation workflows rely on the exact access denied error message strings in AWS. If you have such configured systems, then you should update your systems to rely on the error codes instead, so that when AWS introduces changes to its access denied error messages, your systems remain unaffected.

When will this change become available?

Beginning in September 2021, this update will be introduced and will become gradually available in all AWS services in the following few months. We encourage all customers to be proactive about assessing and modifying any configured systems or automation workflows for access denied error messages.

Need more assistance?

The AWS Support tiers cover development and production issues for AWS products and services, along with other key stack components. AWS Support doesn’t include code development for client applications.

If you have any questions or issues, start a new thread on the AWS IAM forum, or contact AWS Support or your Technical Account Manager (TAM). If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

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Author

Gauravee Gandhi

Gauravee is a Senior Product Manager for AWS Identity and Access Management. She strongly believes in the customer-centric approach while building products, and is always looking for new opportunities to assist customers. Outside of work, Gauravee enjoys traveling, baking and reading. She holds a master’s degree in Information Management from the University of Washington.

Confidential computing: an AWS perspective

Post Syndicated from David Brown original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/confidential-computing-an-aws-perspective/

Customers around the globe—from governments and highly regulated industries to small businesses and start-ups—trust Amazon Web Services (AWS) with their most sensitive data and applications. At AWS, keeping our customers’ workloads secure and confidential, while helping them meet their privacy and data sovereignty requirements, is our highest priority. Our investments in security technologies and rigorous operational practices meet and exceed even our most demanding customers’ confidential computing and data privacy standards. Over the years, we’ve made many long-term investments in purpose-built technologies and systems to keep raising the bar of security and confidentiality for our customers.

In the past year, there has been an increasing interest in the phrase confidential computing in the industry and in our customer conversations. We’ve observed that this phrase is being applied to various technologies that solve very different problems, leading to confusion about what it actually means. With the mission of innovating on behalf of our customers, we want to offer you our perspective on confidential computing.

At AWS, we define confidential computing as the use of specialized hardware and associated firmware to protect customer code and data during processing from outside access. Confidential computing has two distinct security and privacy dimensions. The most important dimension—the one we hear most often from customers as their key concern—is the protection of customer code and data from the operator of the underlying cloud infrastructure. The second dimension is the ability for customers to divide their own workloads into more-trusted and less-trusted components, or to design a system that allows parties that do not, or cannot, fully trust one another to build systems that work in close cooperation while maintaining confidentiality of each party’s code and data.

In this post, I explain how the AWS Nitro System intrinsically meets the requirements of the first dimension by providing those protections to customers who use Nitro-based Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, without requiring any code or workload changes from the customer side. I also explain how AWS Nitro Enclaves provides a way for customers to use familiar toolsets and programming models to meet the requirements of the second dimension. Before we get to the details, let’s take a closer look at the Nitro System.

What is the Nitro System?

The Nitro System, the underlying platform for all modern Amazon EC2 instances, is a great example of how we have invented and innovated on behalf of our customers to provide additional confidentiality and privacy for their applications. For ten years, we have been reinventing the EC2 virtualization stack by moving more and more virtualization functions to dedicated hardware and firmware, and the Nitro System is a result of this continuous and sustained innovation. The Nitro System is comprised of three main parts: the Nitro Cards, the Nitro Security Chip, and the Nitro Hypervisor. The Nitro Cards are dedicated hardware components with compute capabilities that perform I/O functions, such as the Nitro Card for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), the Nitro Card for Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), and the Nitro Card for Amazon EC2 instance storage.

Nitro Cards—which are designed, built, and tested by Annapurna Labs, our in-house silicon development subsidiary—enable us to move key virtualization functionality off the EC2 servers—the underlying host infrastructure—that’s running EC2 instances. We engineered the Nitro System with a hardware-based root of trust using the Nitro Security Chip, allowing us to cryptographically measure and validate the system. This provides a significantly higher level of trust than can be achieved with traditional hardware or virtualization systems. The Nitro Hypervisor is a lightweight hypervisor that manages memory and CPU allocation, and delivers performances that is indistinguishable from bare metal (we recently compared it against our bare metal instances in the Bare metal performance with the AWS Nitro System post).

The Nitro approach to confidential computing

There are three main types of protection provided by the Nitro System. The first two protections underpin the key dimension of confidential computing—customer protection from the cloud operator and from cloud system software—and the third reinforces the second dimension—division of customer workloads into more-trusted and less-trusted elements.

  1. Protection from cloud operators: At AWS, we design our systems to ensure workload confidentiality between customers, and also between customers and AWS. We’ve designed the Nitro System to have no operator access. With the Nitro System, there’s no mechanism for any system or person to log in to EC2 servers (the underlying host infrastructure), read the memory of EC2 instances, or access any data stored on instance storage and encrypted EBS volumes. If any AWS operator, including those with the highest privileges, needs to do maintenance work on the EC2 server, they can do so only by using a strictly limited set of authenticated, authorized, and audited administrative APIs. None of these APIs have the ability to access customer data on the EC2 server. Because these technological restrictions are built into the Nitro System itself, no AWS operator can bypass these controls and protections. For additional defense-in-depth against physical attacks at the memory interface level, we offer memory encryption on various EC2 instances. Today, memory encryption is enabled by default on all Graviton2-based instances (T4g, M6g, C6g, C6gn, R6g, X2g), and Intel-based M6i instances, which have Total Memory Encryption (TME). Upcoming EC2 platforms based on the AMD Milan processor will feature Secure Memory Encryption (SME).
  2. Protection from AWS system software: The unique design of the Nitro System utilizes low-level, hardware-based memory isolation to eliminate direct access to customer memory, as well as to eliminate the need for a hypervisor on bare metal instances.

    • For virtualized EC2 instances (as shown in Figure 1), the Nitro Hypervisor coordinates with the underlying hardware-virtualization systems to create virtual machines that are isolated from each other as well as from the hypervisor itself. Network, storage, GPU, and accelerator access use SR-IOV, a technology that allows instances to interact directly with hardware devices using a pass-through connection securely created by the hypervisor. Other EC2 features such as instance snapshots and hibernation are all facilitated by dedicated agents that employ end-to-end memory encryption that is inaccessible to AWS operators.

      Figure 1: Virtualized EC2 instances

      Figure 1: Virtualized EC2 instances

    • For bare metal EC2 instances (as shown in Figure 2), there’s no hypervisor running on the EC2 server, and customers get dedicated and exclusive access to all of the underlying main system board. Bare metal instances are designed for customers who want access to the physical resources for applications that take advantage of low-level hardware features—such as performance counters and Intel® VT—that aren’t always available or fully supported in virtualized environments, and also for applications intended to run directly on the hardware or licensed and supported for use in non-virtualized environments. Bare metal instances feature the same storage, networking, and other EC2 capabilities as virtualized instances because the Nitro System implements all of the system functions normally provided by the virtualization layer in an isolated and independent manner using dedicated hardware and purpose-built system firmware. We used the very same technology to create Amazon EC2 Mac instances. Because the Nitro System operates over an independent bus, we can attach Nitro cards directly to Apple’s Mac mini hardware without any other physical modifications.

      Figure 2: Bare metal EC2 instance

      Figure 2: Bare metal EC2 instance

  3. Protection of sensitive computing and data elements from customers’ own operators and software: Nitro Enclaves provides the second dimension of confidential computing. Nitro Enclaves is a hardened and highly-isolated compute environment that’s launched from, and attached to, a customer’s EC2 instance. By default, there’s no ability for any user (even a root or admin user) or software running on the customer’s EC2 instance to have interactive access to the enclave. Nitro Enclaves has cryptographic attestation capabilities that allow customers to verify that all of the software deployed to their enclave has been validated and hasn’t been tampered with. A Nitro enclave has the same level of protection from the cloud operator as a normal Nitro-based EC2 instance, but adds the capability for customers to divide their own systems into components with different levels of trust. A Nitro enclave provides a means of protecting particularly sensitive elements of customer code and data not just from AWS operators but also from the customer’s own operators and other software.As the main goal of Nitro Enclaves is to protect against the customers’ own users and software on their EC2 instances, a Nitro enclave considers the EC2 instance to reside outside of its trust boundary. Therefore, a Nitro enclave shares no memory or CPU cores with the customer instance. To significantly reduce the attack surface area, a Nitro enclave also has no IP networking and offers no persistent storage. We designed Nitro Enclaves to be a platform that is highly accessible to all developers without the need to have advanced cryptography knowledge or CPU micro-architectural expertise, so that these developers can quickly and easily build applications to process sensitive data. At the same time, we focused on creating a familiar developer experience so that developing the trusted code that runs in a Nitro enclave is as easy as writing code for any Linux environment.

Summary

To summarize, the Nitro System’s unique approach to virtualization and isolation enables our customers to secure and isolate sensitive data processing from AWS operators and software at all times. It provides the most important dimension of confidential computing as an intrinsic, on-by-default, set of protections from the system software and cloud operators, and optionally via Nitro Enclaves even from customers’ own software and operators.

What’s next?

As mentioned earlier, the Nitro System represents our almost decade-long commitment to raising the bar for security and confidentiality for compute workloads in the cloud. It has allowed us to do more for our customers than is possible with off-the-shelf technology and hardware. But we’re not stopping here, and will continue to add more confidential computing capabilities in the coming months.

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

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Author

David Brown

David is the Vice President of Amazon EC2, a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. He joined AWS in 2007, as a software developer based in Cape Town, working on the early development of Amazon EC2. Over the last 12 years, he has had several roles within Amazon EC2, working on shaping the service into what it is today. Prior to joining Amazon, David worked as a software developer within a financial industry startup.

The Five Ws episode 1: Accreditation models for secure cloud adoption whitepaper

Post Syndicated from Jana Kay original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/the-five-ws-episode-1-accreditation-models-for-secure-cloud-adoption-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 first whitepaper we’re featuring is Accreditation Models for Secure Cloud Adoption. This whitepaper provides cloud accreditation best practices to help you capitalize on the security benefits of commercial cloud computing while maximizing efficiency, scalability, and cost reduction. The paper includes a comparative analysis of different accreditation models in use today. Although the paper highlights public sector examples, the best practices also apply to private sector organizations considering cloud adoption.

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

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Author

Jana Kay

Since 2018, Jana Kay has been a cloud security strategist with the AWS Security Growth Strategies team. She develops innovative ways to help AWS customers achieve their objectives, such as security table top exercises and other strategic initiatives. Previously, she was a cyber, counter-terrorism, and Middle East expert for 16 years in the Pentagon’s Office of the Secretary of Defense.

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

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 12th, 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:

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

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Author

Michael Cotton

Michael is a Senior Solutions Architect at AWS.

Spring 2021 PCI DSS report now available with nine services added in scope

Post Syndicated from Michael Oyeniya original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/spring-2021-pci-dss-report-now-available-with-nine-services-added-in-scope/

We’re continuing to expand the scope of our assurance programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and are pleased to announce that nine new services have been added to the scope of our Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) certification. This provides our customers with more options to process and store their payment card data and architect their cardholder data environment (CDE) securely in AWS.

You can see the full list of services on our Services in Scope by Compliance Program page. The nine new services are:

AWS Local Zones sites were newly assessed as additional infrastructure deployments as part of the spring 2021 PCI assessment.

We were evaluated by Coalfire, a third-party Qualified Security Assessor (QSA). The Attestation of Compliance (AOC) that shows AWS PCI compliance status is available through AWS Artifact.

To learn more about our PCI program and other compliance and security programs, see the AWS Compliance Programs page. 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.

Author

Michael Oyeniya

Michael is a Compliance Program Manager at AWS on the Global Audits team, managing the PCI compliance program. He holds a Master’s degree in management and has over 18 years of experience in information technology security risk and control.

Five reasons why I’m excited to attend AWS re:Inforce 2021 in Houston, TX

Post Syndicated from Clarke Rodgers original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/five-reasons-why-im-excited-to-attend-aws-reinforce-2021-in-houston-tx/

You may have seen the recent invitation from Stephen Schmidt, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Amazon Web Services, to join us at AWS re:Inforce in Houston, TX on August 24 and 25. I’d like to dive a little bit deeper into WHY you should attend and HOW to make the most of your time there.

Why listen to me? As an AWS Enterprise Strategist focused on security, risk, and compliance (and a former CISO), I spend most of my time with customers helping them navigate the world of security in the cloud. I also help them learn how security fits into the bigger picture of digital transformation and cloud adoption. Virtually every question and problem set I’m presented with as part of my day job is addressed at AWS re:Inforce. It is a learning conference designed to educate our customers through hands-on workshops and sessions, whether they’re executives, managers, engineers, or developers. Focused on the security mission, AWS re:Inforce is the event we’ve been looking for as security professionals, free of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) and “magic potions” presented at other security events.

Although many attendees come to learn from AWS leaders and security practitioners, I believe some of the best knowledge comes from our customers (your peers) and the amazing security solutions they’ve built using AWS services. The customer sessions present practical solutions that have worked at their respective organizations. Struggling on how to solve a particular security challenge? Chances are one of your peers has already solved it. And during the ample networking opportunities, you may be able to teach and inspire your peers as well! View the listings for customer-led and AWS-led sessions.

I’ve written about how to think broadly about security solutions by focusing on capabilities rather than specific tools or vendor solutions. AWS re:Inforce underscores the point that with the cloud, you are in charge of your own security destiny.

Some of the sessions and experiences I’m particularly excited about at this year’s AWS re:Inforce:

  1. Stephen Schmidt’s keynote with special guest speaker, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky. AWS re:Inforce 2021 kicks off with the keynote on Tuesday, August 24. Stephen and Adam will take the stage with industry-leading guest speakers to share best practices for managing security, compliance, identity, and governance in the cloud. In addition to attending in person, you can register for the livestream of the keynote.
  2. Leadership sessions from some of the top security, risk, and compliance minds at AWS. The sessions cover the latest in Data Protection & Privacy, Governance, Risk & Compliance, Identity & Access Management, Network & Infrastructure, and Threat Detection & Incident Response.
  3. Security Jams, which are gamified security exercises based on real-world security problems. We’re offering two gamified learning opportunities at re:Inforce: AWS Security Jams and Capture the Flag. Security Jams are scheduled sessions, and the Capture the Flag experience in the Expo is self-paced. Both offer you an opportunity to showcase your knowledge of general security concepts as well as AWS security best practices. Create a team or work solo—all you need to bring is your desire to learn and a laptop.
  4. The Security Learning Hub, where you can learn at your own pace about the subjects YOU are interested in, from the experts who either built or regularly support your favorite AWS security solutions. The Security Learning Hub is the central location for learning and engagement at re:Inforce. Not only will you learn from AWS Security Partners, but you’ll engage in unique demos and experiences, connect with AWS experts, and network with the security community.
  5. Networking—meet with peers, customers, AWS Partners, and AWS Security experts under one roof (and yes, in person!).

Still not sure how to best plan your time? Take a look at these curated attendee guides by some of our security-focused AWS Heroes, who are experts in their own right. Whether you identify as a builder, executive, or industry/security professional, there’s a path for you to follow for your time at AWS re:Inforce.

If you’re already registered, I look forward to seeing you in Houston and wish you an awesome AWS re:Inforce 2021. Not registered yet…what are you waiting for? Register today and use the code “RFSALUwi70xfx” for a $300 discount.

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

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Author

Clarke Rodgers

Clarke is an Enterprise Security Strategist with AWS. In this role, Clarke works with enterprise security, risk, and compliance focused executives on how AWS can strengthen their security posture and to help understand the security capabilities/possibilities of the cloud. Prior to AWS, Clarke was a CISO for the North American operations of a multinational insurance/reinsurance company where he took a strategic division all-in to AWS for security reasons, to include achieving SOC2/Type2 attestation. Clarke’s 20+ year career in IT operations and security-focused roles helps him align with the needs of today’s enterprise customers during their cloud transformation journeys. Clarke attended the University of North Carolina and served as a United States Marine.

New 2021 H1 IRAP report is now available on AWS Artifact for Australian customers

Post Syndicated from Clara Lim original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/new-2021-h1-irap-report-is-now-available-on-aws-artifact-for-australian-customers/

We are excited to announce that an additional 15 AWS services are now assessed to be in scope for Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) after a successful incremental audit completed in June 2021 by independent ASD (Australian Signals Directorate) certified IRAP assessor. This brings the total to 112 services assessed at IRAP PROTECTED level. The new IRAP report is now available in AWS Artifact, 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.

For the full list of these services, see the AWS Services in Scope page on the IRAP tab. All services in scope are available in the Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region.

The following are the 15 newly added services in scope:

  1. Amazon Connect Customer Profiles
  2. Amazon Detective
  3. Amazon Fraud Detector
  4. Amazon Kendra
  5. Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra)
  6. Amazon Lex
  7. Amazon Textract
  8. AWS App Mesh
  9. AWS Cloud Map
  10. AWS Cloud9
  11. AWS Ground Station
  12. AWS OpsWorks for Chef Automate
  13. AWS OpsWorks for Puppet Enterprise
  14. AWS Personal Health Dashboard
  15. AWS Resource Groups

The IRAP documentation pack is developed in accordance with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Cloud Security Guidance and their Anatomy of a Cloud Assessment and Authorisation framework, which addresses guidance within the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM), the Attorney-General’s Department Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF), and the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) Secure Cloud Strategy.

The IRAP package on AWS Artifact also includes the AWS Consumer Guide and the whitepaper Reference Architectures for ISM PROTECTED Workloads in the AWS Cloud.

We created the IRAP documentation pack to help Australian government agencies and their partners to plan, architect, and risk assess their workloads, in utilizing AWS Cloud services. Please reach out to your AWS representatives to let us know which additional services you would like to see in scope for coming IRAP assessments. We strive to bring more services into the scope of the IRAP PROTECTED level, based on your requirements.

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

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Author

Clara Lim

Clara is the Audit Program Manager for the Asia Pacific Region, leading multiple security certification programs. Clara is passionate about leveraging her decade-long experience to deliver compliance programs that provide assurance and build trust with customers.

OSPAR 2021 report now available with 127 services in scope

Post Syndicated from Clara Lim original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/ospar-2021-report-now-available-with-127-services-in-scope/

We are excited to announce the completion of the third Outsourced Service Provider Audit Report (OSPAR) audit cycle on July 1, 2021. The latest OSPAR certification includes the addition of 19 new services in scope, bringing the total number of services to 127 in the Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region.

You can download our latest OSPAR report in AWS Artifact, 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. The list of services in scope for OSPAR is available in the report, and is also available on the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program webpage.

Some of the newly added services in scope include the following:

  • AWS Outposts, a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs, and tools to any datacenter, co-location space, or an on-premises facility for a consistent hybrid experience.
  • Amazon Connect, an easy to use omnichannel cloud contact center that helps customers provide superior customer service across voice, chat, and tasks at lower cost than traditional contact center systems.
  • Amazon Lex, a service for building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text.
  • Amazon Macie, a fully managed data security and data privacy service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to help customers discover, monitor, and protect customers’ sensitive data in AWS.
  • Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), a fully managed ledger database that provides a transparent, immutable and cryptographically verifiable transaction log owned by a central trusted authority.

The OSPAR assessment is performed by an independent third-party auditor, selected from the ABS list of approved auditors. The assessment demonstrates that AWS has a system of controls in place that meet the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) Guidelines on Control Objectives and Procedures for Outsourced Service Providers. Our alignment with the ABS guidelines demonstrates to customers, our commitment to meet the security expectations for cloud service providers set by the financial services industry in Singapore. You can leverage the OSPAR assessment report to conduct due diligence, and to help reduce the effort and costs required for compliance. AWS OSPAR reporting period is now updated in the ABS list of OSPAR Audited Outsourced Service Providers.

As always, we are committed to bringing new services into the scope of our OSPAR program based on your architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions about the OSPAR report.

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

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Author

Clara Lim

Clara is the Audit Program Manager for the Asia Pacific Region, leading multiple security certification programs. Clara is passionate about leveraging her decade-long experience to deliver compliance programs that provide assurance and build trust with customers.

How AWS is helping EU customers navigate the new normal for data protection

Post Syndicated from Stephen Schmidt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-aws-is-helping-eu-customers-navigate-the-new-normal-for-data-protection/

Achieving compliance with the European Union’s data protection regulations is critical for hundreds of thousands of Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers. Many of them are subject to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which ensures individuals’ fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data. In February, we announced strengthened commitments to protect customer data, such as challenging law enforcement requests for customer data that conflict with EU law.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve launched two new online resources to help customers more easily complete data transfer assessments and comply with the GDPR, taking into account the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) recommendations. These resources will also assist AWS customers in other countries to understand whether their use of AWS services involves a data transfer.

Using AWS’s new “Privacy Features for AWS Services,” customers can determine whether their use of an individual AWS service involves the transfer of customer data (the personal data they’ve uploaded to their AWS account). Knowing this information enables customers to choose the right action for their applications, such as opting out of the data transfer or creating an appropriate disclosure of the transfer for end user transparency.

We’re also providing additional information on the processing activities and locations of the limited number of sub-processors that AWS engages to provide services that involve the processing of customer data. AWS engages three types of sub-processors:

  • Local AWS entities that provide the AWS infrastructure.
  • AWS entities that process customer data for specific AWS services.
  • Third parties that AWS contracts with to provide processing activities for specific AWS services.

The enhanced information available on our updated Sub-processors page enables customers to assess if a sub-processor is relevant to their use of AWS services and AWS Regions.

These new resources make it easier for AWS customers to conduct their data transfer assessments as set out in the EDPB recommendations and, as a result, comply with GDPR. After completing their data transfer assessments, customers will also be able to determine whether they need to implement supplemental measures in line with the EDPB’s recommendations.

These resources support our ongoing commitment to giving customers control over where their data is stored, how it’s stored, and who has access to it.

Since we opened our first region in the EU in 2007, customers have been able to choose to store customer data with AWS in the EU. Today, customers can store their data in our AWS Regions in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Sweden, and we’re adding Spain in 2022. AWS will never transfer data outside a customer’s selected AWS Region without the customer’s agreement.

AWS customers control how their data is stored, and we have a variety of tools at their disposal to enhance security. For example, AWS CloudHSM and AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) allow customers to encrypt data in transit and at rest and securely generate and manage encryption keys that they control.

Finally, our customers control who can access their data. We never use customer data for marketing or advertising purposes. We also prohibit, and our systems are designed to prevent, remote access by AWS personnel to customer data for any purpose, including service maintenance, unless requested by a customer, required to prevent fraud and abuse, or to comply with the law.

As previously mentioned, we challenge law enforcement requests for customer data from governmental bodies, whether inside or outside the EU, where the request conflicts with EU law, is overbroad, or we otherwise have any appropriate grounds to do so.

Earning customer trust is the foundation of our business at AWS, and we know protecting customer data is key to achieving this. We also know that helping customers protect their data in a world with constantly changing regulations, technology, and risks takes teamwork. We would never expect our customers to go it alone.

As we continue to enhance the capabilities customers have at their fingertips, they can be confident that choosing AWS will ensure they have the tools necessary to help them meet the most stringent security, privacy, and compliance requirements.

If you have questions or need more information, visit our EU Data Protection page.

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Author

Steve Schmidt

Steve is Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for AWS. His duties include leading product design, management, and engineering development efforts focused on bringing the competitive, economic, and security benefits of cloud computing to business and government customers. Prior to AWS, he had an extensive career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served as a senior executive and section chief. He currently holds 11 patents in the field of cloud security architecture. Follow Steve on Twitter.

Author

Donna Dodson

Donna is a Senior Principal Scientist at AWS focusing on security and privacy capabilities including cryptography, risk management, standards, and assessments. Before joining AWS, Donna was the Chief Cybersecurity Advisor at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She led NIST’s comprehensive cybersecurity research and development to cultivate trust in technology for stakeholders nationally and internationally.

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.

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

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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.

AWS Verified episode 6: A conversation with Reeny Sondhi of Autodesk

Post Syndicated from Stephen Schmidt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-verified-episode-6-a-conversation-with-reeny-sondhi-of-autodesk/

I’m happy to share the latest episode of AWS Verified, where we bring you global conversations with leaders about issues impacting cybersecurity, privacy, and the cloud. We take this opportunity to meet with leaders from various backgrounds in security, technology, and leadership.

For our latest episode of Verified, I had the opportunity to meet virtually with Reeny Sondhi, Vice President and Chief Security Officer of Autodesk. In her role, Reeny drives security-related strategy and decisions across the company. She leads the teams responsible for the security of Autodesk’s infrastructure, cloud, products, and services, as well as the teams dedicated to security governance, risk & compliance, and security incident response.

Reeny and I touched on a variety of subjects, from her career journey, to her current stewardship of Autodesk’s security strategy based on principles of trust. Reeny started her career in product management, having conceptualized, created, and brought multiple software and hardware products to market. “My passion as a product manager was to understand customer problems and come up with either innovative products or features to help solve them. I tell my team I entered the world of security by accident from product management, but staying in this profession has been my choice. I’ve been able to take the same passion I had when I was a product manager for solving real world customer problems forward as a security leader. Even today, sitting down with my customers, understanding what their problems are, and then building a security program that directly solves these problems, is core to how I operate.”

Autodesk has customers across a wide variety of industries, so Reeny and her team work to align the security program with customer experience and expectations. Reeny has also worked to drive security awareness across Autodesk, empowering employees throughout the organization to act as security owners. “One lesson is consistency in approach. And another key lesson that I’ve learned over the last few years is to demystify security as much as possible for all constituents in the organization. We have worked pretty hard to standardize security practices across the entire organization, which has helped us in scaling security throughout Autodesk.”

Reeny and Autodesk are setting a great example on how to innovate on behalf of their customers, securely. I encourage you to learn more about her perspective on this, and other aspects of how to manage and scale a modern security program, by watching the interview.

Watch my interview with Reeny, and visit the Verified webpage for previous episodes, including conversations with security leaders at Netflix, Comcast, and Vodafone. If you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see featured in future episodes, please leave a comment below.

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Author

Steve Schmidt

Steve is Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for AWS. His duties include leading product design, management, and engineering development efforts focused on bringing the competitive, economic, and security benefits of cloud computing to business and government customers. Prior to AWS, he had an extensive career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served as a senior executive and section chief. He currently holds 11 patents in the field of cloud security architecture. Follow Steve on Twitter.

Join us in person for AWS re:Inforce 2021

Post Syndicated from Stephen Schmidt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/join-us-in-person-for-aws-reinforce-2021/

I’d like to personally invite you to attend our security conference, AWS re:Inforce 2021 in Houston, TX on August 24–25. This event will offer interactive educational content to address your security, compliance, privacy, and identity management needs.

As the Chief Information Security Officer of Amazon Web Services (AWS), my primary job is to help our customers navigate their security journey while keeping the AWS environment safe. AWS re:Inforce will help you understand how you can change to accelerate the pace of innovation in your business while staying secure. With recent headlines around ransomware, misconfigurations, and unintended privacy consequences, this is your chance to learn the tactical and strategic lessons that will help keep your systems and tools protected.

AWS re:Inforce 2021 will kick off with my keynote on Tuesday, August 24. You’ll hear about the latest innovations in cloud security from AWS and learn what you can do to foster a culture of security in your business. Take a look at my re:Invent 2020 presentation, AWS Security: Where we’ve been, where we’re going, or this short overview of the top 10 areas security groups should focus on for examples of the type of content to expect.

For those who are just getting started on AWS and for our more tenured customers, AWS re:Inforce offers you an opportunity to learn how to prioritize your security posture and investments. Using the Security pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, sessions will address how you can build practical and prescriptive measures to protect your data, systems, and assets.

Sessions are offered at all levels and for all backgrounds, from business to technical, and there are learning opportunities in over 100 sessions across five tracks: Data Protection & Privacy; Governance, Risk & Compliance; Identity & Access Management; Network & Infrastructure Security; and Threat Detection & Incident Response. In these sessions, you’ll connect with and learn from AWS experts, customers, and partners who share actionable insights that you can apply in your everyday work. AWS re:Inforce is interactive, with sessions like chalk talks and lecture-style breakout content available to suit your learning style and goals. Sessions will be available from the intermediate (200) through expert (400) levels, so you can grow your skills, no matter where you are in your career. Finally, there will be a leadership session for each track, where AWS leaders will share best practices and trends in each of these areas.

At re:Inforce, AWS developers and experts will cover the latest advancements in AWS security, compliance, privacy, and identity solutions—including actionable insights your business can use right now. Plus, you’ll learn from AWS customers and partners who are using AWS services in innovative ways to protect their data, achieve security at scale, and stay ahead of bad actors in this rapidly evolving security landscape.

We hope you can join us in Houston, and we want you to feel safe if you do. The health and safety of our customers, partners, and employees remains our top priority. If you want to learn more about health measures that are being taken at re:Inforce, visit our Health Measures page on the conference website. If you’re not yet comfortable attending in person, or if local travel restrictions prevent you from doing so, register to access a livestream of my keynote for free. Also, a selection of sessions will be recorded and available to watch after the event. Keep checking the AWS re:Inforce website for additional updates.

A full conference pass is $1,099. However, if you register today with the code “RFSALUwi70xfx” you’ll receive a $300 discount (while supplies last).

We’re excited to get back to re:Inforce; it is emblematic of our commitment to giving customers direct access to the latest security research and trends. We’ll continue to release additional details about the event on our website, and we look forward to seeing you in Houston!

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

Author

Steve Schmidt

Steve is Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for AWS. His duties include leading product design, management, and engineering development efforts focused on bringing the competitive, economic, and security benefits of cloud computing to business and government customers. Prior to AWS, he had an extensive career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served as a senior executive and section chief. He currently holds 11 patents in the field of cloud security architecture. Follow Steve on Twitter.

AWS welcomes Wickr to the team

Post Syndicated from Stephen Schmidt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-welcomes-wickr-to-the-team/

We’re excited to share that AWS has acquired Wickr, an innovative company that has developed the industry’s most secure, end-to-end encrypted, communication technology. With Wickr, customers and partners benefit from advanced security features not available with traditional communications services – across messaging, voice and video calling, file sharing, and collaboration. This gives security conscious enterprises and government agencies the ability to implement important governance and security controls to help them meet their compliance requirements.

wickrToday, public sector customers use Wickr for a diverse range of missions, from securely communicating with office-based employees to providing service members at the tactical edge with encrypted communications. Enterprise customers use Wickr to keep communications between employees and business partners private, while remaining compliant with regulatory requirements.

The need for this type of secure communications is accelerating. With the move to hybrid work environments, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises and government agencies have a growing desire to protect their communications across many remote locations. Wickr’s secure communications solutions help enterprises and government organizations adapt to this change in their workforces and is a welcome addition to the growing set of collaboration and productivity services that AWS offers customers and partners.

AWS is offering Wickr services effective immediately and Wickr customers, channel, and business partners can continue to use Wickr’s services as they do today. To get started with Wickr visit www.wickr.com.

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Author

Stephen Schmidt

Steve is Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for AWS. His duties include leading product design, management, and engineering development efforts focused on bringing the competitive, economic, and security benefits of cloud computing to business and government customers. Prior to AWS, he had an extensive career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served as a senior executive and section chief. He currently holds 11 patents in the field of cloud security architecture. Follow Steve on Twitter.

Security is the top priority for Amazon S3

Post Syndicated from Maddie Bacon original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/security-is-the-top-priority-for-amazon-s3/

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) launched 15 years ago in March 2006, and became the first generally available service from Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS marked the fifteenth anniversary with AWS Pi Week—a week of in-depth streams and live events. During AWS Pi Week, AWS leaders and experts reviewed the history of AWS and Amazon S3, and some of the key decisions involved in building and evolving S3.

As part of this celebration, Werner Vogels, VP and CTO for Amazon.com, and Eric Brandwine, VP and Distinguished Engineer with AWS Security, had a conversation about the role of security in Amazon S3 and all AWS services. They touched on why customers come to AWS, and how AWS services grow with customers by providing built-in security that can progress to protections that are more complex, based on each customer’s specific needs. They also touched on how, starting with Amazon S3 over 15 years ago and continuing to this day, security is the top priority at AWS, and how nothing can proceed at AWS without security that customers can rely on.

“In security, there are constantly challenging tradeoffs,” Eric says. “The path that we’ve taken at AWS is that our services are usable, but secure by default.”

To learn more about how AWS helps secure its customers’ systems and information through a culture of security first, watch the video, and be sure to check out AWS Pi Week 2021: The Birth of the AWS Cloud.

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

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Author

Maddie Bacon

Maddie (she/her) is a technical writer for AWS Security with a passion for creating meaningful, inclusive content. She previously worked as a security reporter and editor at TechTarget and has a BA in Mathematics. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and all things Harry Potter.