Rapid7 has successfully completed an Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment to PROTECTED Level for several of our Insight Platform solutions.
What is IRAP?
An IRAP assessment is an independent assessment of the implementation, appropriateness, and effectiveness of a system’s security controls. Achieving IRAP PROTECTED status means Australian Government agencies requiring PROTECTED level controls can access our industry-leading, practitioner-first security solutions. Meeting this status further strengthens our position as a trusted partner for Australian government organizations seeking to enhance their cybersecurity posture.
Rapid7 is one of the only vendors to be IRAP-assessed across what we consider a consolidated cybersecurity operation. This places us in a unique position to supply services across federal, state, and local government in Australia. It provides our government customers with the confidence that we have the right governance and controls in place for our own business in order to deliver that service effectively for our customers, specifically covering:
Vulnerability management on traditional infrastructure
Endpoints
The secure implementation of web applications
Detection and response to alerts or threats
The ability to securely automate workflows
Why is being IRAP PROTECTED important?
Being IRAP-assessed demonstrates our commitment to providing secure and reliable information security services for Government Systems, Cloud Service Providers, Cloud Services, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Systems, and more widely to our Australian customers.
Importantly, it highlights how we take the shared responsibility model extremely seriously. It also shows we’re protecting our customers’ information and data across their traditional infrastructure and in the cloud.
Which solutions are approved?
Solutions assessed and approved for PROTECTED Level include InsightIDR (detection and response), InsightVM (vulnerability management), InsightAppSec (application security), and InsightConnect (orchestration and automation). These solutions provide a comprehensive security platform to help government agencies tackle the challenges of today’s evolving cybersecurity landscape.
The successful completion of the IRAP assessment at the PROTECTED level demonstrates our commitment to supporting Australian government customers. It means they have access to a comprehensive security platform necessary to tackle the ever-evolving challenges of today’s cybersecurity landscape.
As more government agencies migrate to hybrid cloud environments, we can help them better manage the growing complexity of identifying and securing the attack surface.
As attackers become increasingly sophisticated, better armed, and faster, the IRAP assessment is yet another string in our cybersecurity bow, showcasing our potential to support Australian Government agencies and more widely, our customers.
This alignment with DESC requirements demonstrates our continuous commitment to adhere to the heightened expectations for CSPs. Government customers of AWS can run their applications in AWS Cloud-certified Regions with confidence.
The independent third-party auditor BSI evaluated AWS on behalf of DESC on January 23, 2024. The Certificate of Compliance that illustrates the compliance status of AWS is available 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.
The certification includes 25 additional services in scope, for a total of 87 services. This is a 40% increase in the number of services in the Middle East (UAE) Region that are in scope of the DESC CSP certification. For up-to-date information, including when additional services are added, see the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program webpage and choose DESC CSP.
AWS strives to continuously bring services into the scope of its compliance programs to help you meet your architectural and regulatory needs. If you have questions or feedback about DESC compliance, reach out to your AWS account team.
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.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) is excited to announce that AWS Wickr has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization at the High impact level from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board (JAB).
FedRAMP is a U.S. government–wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud services by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies.
Customers find security and control in Wickr
Wickr is an end-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration service with features designed to help keep your communications secure, private, and compliant. Wickr protects one-to-one and group messaging, voice and video calling, file sharing, screen sharing, and location sharing with 256-bit encryption, and provides data retention capabilities.
You can create Wickr networks through the AWS Management Console. Administrative controls allow your Wickr administrators to add, remove, and invite users, and organize them into security groups to manage messaging, calling, security, and federation settings. You maintain full control over data, which includes addressing information governance polices, configuring ephemeral messaging options, and deleting credentials for lost or stolen devices.
You can log internal and external communications—including conversations with guest users, contractors, and other partner networks—in a private data store that you manage. This allows you to retain messages and files that are sent to and from your organization, to help meet requirements such as those that fall under the Federal Records Act (FRA) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The FedRAMP milestone
In obtaining a FedRAMP High authorization, Wickr has been measured against a rigorous set of security controls, procedures, and policies established by the U.S. Federal Government, based on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards.
“For many federal agencies and organizations, having the ability to securely communicate and share information—whether in an office or out in the field—is key to helping achieve their critical missions. AWS Wickr helps our government customers collaborate securely through messaging, calling, file and screen sharing with end-to-end encryption. The FedRAMP High authorization for Wickr demonstrates our commitment to delivering solutions that give government customers the control and confidence they need to support their sensitive and regulated workloads.” — Christian Hoff, Director, US Federal Civilian & Health at AWS
FedRAMP on AWS
AWS is continually expanding the scope of our compliance programs to help you use authorized services for sensitive and regulated workloads. We now offer 150 services that are authorized in the AWS US East/West Regions under FedRAMP Moderate authorization, and 132 services authorized in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions under FedRAMP High authorization.
The FedRAMP High authorization of Wickr further validates our commitment at AWS to public-sector customers. With Wickr, you can combine the security of end-to-end encryption with the administrative flexibility you need to secure mission-critical communications, and keep up with recordkeeping requirements. Wickr is available under FedRAMP High in the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region.
At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are committed to providing continued assurance to our customers through assessments, certifications, and attestations that support the adoption of current and new AWS services and features. We are pleased to announce the availability of the 2023 Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) assessment summary report for AWS. With this assessment, a total of 150 AWS services and features are assessed in the Canada (Central) Region, including 20 additional AWS services and features. The assessment report is available for review and download on demand through AWS Artifact.
The full list of services in scope for the CCCS assessment is available on the Services in Scope page. The 20 new services and features are the following:
The CCCS is Canada’s authoritative source of cyber security expert guidance for the Canadian government, industry, and the general public. Public and commercial sector organizations across Canada rely on CCCS’s rigorous Cloud Service Provider (CSP) IT Security (ITS) assessment in their decision to use CSP services. In addition, CCCS’s ITS assessment process is a mandatory requirement for AWS to provide cloud services to Canadian federal government departments and agencies.
The CCCS cloud service provider information technology security assessment process determines if the Government of Canada (GC) ITS requirements for the CCCS Medium cloud security profile (previously referred to as GC’s PROTECTED B/Medium Integrity/Medium Availability [PBMM] profile) are met as described in ITSG-33 (IT security risk management: A lifecycle approach, Annex 3 – Security control catalogue). As of November 2023, 150 AWS services in the Canada (Central) Region have been assessed by CCCS and meet the requirements for the Medium cloud security profile. Meeting the Medium cloud security profile is required to host workloads that are classified up to and including Medium categorization. On a periodic basis, CCCS assesses new or previously unassessed services and re-assesses the AWS services that were previously assessed to verify that they continue to meet the GC’s requirements. CCCS prioritizes the assessment of new AWS services based on their availability in Canada, and customer demand for the AWS services. The full list of AWS services that have been assessed by CCCS is available on our Services in Scope for CCCS Assessment page.
To learn more about the CCCS assessment or our other compliance and security programs, visit 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. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.
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On May 20, 2023, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) released the FedRAMP Rev.5 baselines. The FedRAMP baselines were updated to correspond with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-53 Rev. 5 Catalog of Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations and SP 800-53B Control Baselines for Information Systems and Organizations. AWS is transitioning to the updated security requirements and assisting customers by making new resources available (additional information on these resources below). AWS security and compliance teams are analyzing both the FedRAMP baselines and templates, along with the NIST 800-53 Rev. 5 requirements, to help ensure a seamless transition. This post details the high-level milestones for the transition of AWS GovCloud (US) and AWS US East/West FedRAMP-authorized Regions and lists new resources available to customers.
Background
The NIST 800-53 framework is an information security standard that sets forth minimum requirements for federal information systems. In 2020, NIST released Rev. 5 of the framework with new control requirements related to privacy and supply chain risk management, among other enhancements, to improve security standards for industry partners and government agencies. The Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) of 2014 is a law requiring the implementation of information security policies for federal Executive Branch civilian agencies and contractors. FedRAMP is a government-wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud service offerings across the federal government by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies. Both FISMA and FedRAMP adhere to the NIST SP 800-53 framework to define security control baselines that are applicable to AWS and its agency customers.
Key milestones and deliverables
The timeline for AWS to transition to FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines will be predicated on transition guidance and requirements issued by the FedRAMP Program Management Office (PMO), our third-party assessment (3PAO) schedule, and the FedRAMP Provisional Authorization to Operate (P-ATO) authorization date. Below you will find a list of key documents to help customers get started with Rev. 5 on AWS, as well as timelines for the AWS preliminary authorization schedule.
Key Rev. 5 AWS documents for customers:
AWS FedRAMP Rev5 Customer Responsibility Matrix (CRM) – Made available on AWS Artifact September 1, 2023 (attachment within the AWS FedRAMP Customer Package).
AWS Customer Compliance Guides (CCG) V2 – AWS Customer Compliance Guides are now available on AWS Artifact. CCGs are mapped to NIST 800-53 Rev. 5 and nine additional compliance frameworks.
AWS GovCloud (US) authorization timeline:
3PAO Rev. 5 annual assessment: January 2024–April 2024
Estimated 2024 Rev. 5 P-ATO letter delivery: Q4 2024
AWS US East/West commercial authorization timeline:
3PAO Rev 5. annual assessment: March 2024–June 2024
Estimated 2024 Rev. 5 P-ATO letter delivery: Q4 2024
The AWS transition to FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines will be completed in accordance with regulatory requirements as defined in our existing FedRAMP P-ATO letter, according to the FedRAMP Transition Guidance. Note that FedRAMP P-ATO letters and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Provisional Authorization (PA) letters for AWS are considered active through the transition to NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5. This includes through the 2024 annual assessments of AWS GovCloud (US) and AWS US East/West Regions. The P-ATO letters for each Region are expected to be delivered between Q3 and Q4 of 2024. Supporting documentation required for FedRAMP authorization will be made available to U.S. Government agencies and stakeholders in 2024 on a rolling basis and based on the timeline and conclusion of 3PAO assessments.
How to contact us
For questions about the AWS transition to the FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines, AWS and its services, or for compliance questions, contact [email protected].
To learn more about AWS compliance programs, see the AWS Compliance Programs page. For more information about the FedRAMP project, see the FedRAMP website.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) has released Customer Compliance Guides (CCGs) to support customers, partners, and auditors in their understanding of how compliance requirements from leading frameworks map to AWS service security recommendations. CCGs cover 100+ services and features offering security guidance mapped to 10 different compliance frameworks. Customers can select any of the available frameworks and services to see a consolidated summary of recommendations that are mapped to security control requirements.
CCGs summarize key details from public AWS user guides and map them to related security topics and control requirements. CCGs don’t cover compliance topics such as physical and maintenance controls, or organization-specific requirements such as policies and human resources controls. This makes the guides lightweight and focused only on the unique security considerations for AWS services.
Customer Compliance Guides work backwards from security configuration recommendations for each service and map the guidance and compliance considerations to the following frameworks:
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53
NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF)
NIST 800-171
System and Organization Controls (SOC) II
Center for Internet Security (CIS) Critical Controls v8.0
ISO 27001
NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) v4.0
Department of Defense Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC)
HIPAA
Customer Compliance Guides help customers address three primary challenges:
Explaining how configuration responsibility might vary depending on the service and summarizing security best practice guidance through the lens of compliance
Assisting customers in determining the scope of their security or compliance assessments based on the services they use to run their workloads
Providing customers with guidance to craft security compliance documentation that might be required to meet various compliance frameworks
CCGs are available for download in AWS Artifact. Artifact is your go-to, central resource for AWS compliance-related information. It provides on-demand access to security and compliance reports from AWS and independent software vendors (ISVs) who sell their products on AWS Marketplace. To access the new CCG resources, navigate to AWS Artifact from the console and search for Customer Compliance Guides. To learn more about the background of Customer Compliance Guides, see the YouTube video Simplify the Shared Responsibility Model.
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President Biden has announced his intent to appoint a group of highly qualified and diverse industry leaders, including Rapid7 chairman & CEO Corey E. Thomas, to the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC).
NSTAC’s mission is to to provide the best possible technical information and policy advice to assist the President and other stakeholders responsible for critical national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) services. The committee advises the White House on the reliability, security, and preparedness of vital communications and information infrastructure. It is focused on five key themes:
Strengthening national security
Enhancing cybersecurity
Maintaining the global communications infrastructure
Assuring communications for disaster response
Addressing critical infrastructure interdependencies and dependencies
Thomas joins a talented group of telecommunications and security executives from companies such as AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco, Lockheed Martin, T-Mobile, and Verizon. These executives bring diverse perspectives backed by years of unique industry experience.
“It is an extreme honor and privilege to be named to the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee,” said Thomas. “I look forward to the remarkable opportunity to provide cybersecurity guidance to the President’s administration and to work alongside and learn from this talented group of individuals, many of whom I’ve admired throughout my career.”
We continue to expand the scope of our assurance programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and are pleased to announce that our Middle East (UAE) Region is now certified by the Dubai Electronic Security Centre (DESC) to operate as a Tier 1 cloud service provider (CSP). This alignment with DESC requirements demonstrates our continuous commitment to adhere to the heightened expectations for CSPs. AWS government customers can run their applications in the AWS Cloud certified Regions in confidence.
AWS was evaluated by independent third-party auditor BSI on behalf of DESC on January 23, 2023. The Certificate of Compliance illustrating the AWS compliance status is available 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.
As of this writing, 62 services offered in the Middle East (UAE) Region are in scope of this certification. For up-to-date information, including when additional services are added, visit the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program webpage and choose DESC CSP.
AWS strives to continuously bring services into scope of its compliance programs to help you meet your architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions or feedback about DESC compliance.
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.
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We are happy to announce that Rapid7 has been added to Carahsoft’s GSA Schedule contract, making our suite of comprehensive security solutions widely available to Federal, State, and Local agencies through Carahsoft and its reseller partners.
“With the ever-evolving threat landscape, it is important that the public sector has the resources to defend against sophisticated cyber attacks and vulnerabilities,” said Alex Whitworth, Sales Director who leads the Rapid7 Team at Carahsoft.
“The addition of Rapid7’s cloud risk management and threat detection solutions to our GSA Schedule gives Government customers and our reseller partners expansive access to the tools necessary to protect their critical infrastructure.”
With the GSA contract award, Rapid7 is able to significantly expand its availability to Federal, State, Local, and Government markets. In addition to GSA, Rapid7 was recently added to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics Mitigation’s Approved Products List.
“As the attack surface continues to increase in size and complexity, it’s imperative that all organizations have access to the tools and services they need to monitor risk across their environments,” said Damon Cabanillas, Vice President of Public Sector Sales at Rapid7.
“This contract award is a massive step forward for Rapid7 as we work to further serve the public sector.”
Rapid7 is available through Carahsoft’s GSA Schedule No. 47QSWA18D008F. For more information on Rapid7’s products and services, contact the Rapid7 team at Carahsoft at [email protected].
We are happy to announce that Rapid7’s solutions have been added to the NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions contract held by Carahsoft Technology Corp. The addition of this contract enables Carahsoft and its reseller partners to provide Rapid7’s Insight platform to participating States, Local Governments, and Educational (SLED) institutions.
“Rapid7’s Insight platform goes beyond threat detection by enabling organizations to quickly respond to attacks with intelligent automation,” said Alex Whitworth, Sales Director who leads the Rapid7 Team at Carahsoft.
“We are thrilled to work with Rapid7 and our reseller partners to deliver these advanced cloud risk management and threat detection solutions to NASPO members to further protect IT environments across the SLED space.”
NASPO ValuePoint is a cooperative purchasing program facilitating public procurement solicitations and agreements using a lead-state model. The program provides the highest standard of excellence in public cooperative contracting. By leveraging the leadership and expertise of all states and the purchasing power of their public entities, NASPO ValuePoint delivers the highest valued, reliable and competitively sourced contracts, offering public entities outstanding prices.
“In partnership with Carahsoft and their reseller partners, we look forward to providing broader availability of the Insight platform to help security teams better protect their organizations from an increasingly complex and volatile threat landscape,” said Damon Cabanillas, Vice President of Public Sector Sales at Rapid7.
The Rapid7 Insight platform is available through Carahsoft’s NASPO ValuePoint Master Agreement #AR2472. For more information, visit https://www.carahsoft.com/rapid7/contracts.
The CCCS is Canada’s authoritative source of cyber security expert guidance for the Canadian government, industry, and the general public. Public and commercial sector organizations across Canada rely on CCCS’s rigorous Cloud Service Provider (CSP) IT Security (ITS) assessment in their decisions to use cloud services. In addition, CCCS’s ITS assessment process is a mandatory requirement for AWS to provide cloud services to Canadian federal government departments and agencies.
The CCCS Cloud Service Provider Information Technology Security Assessment Process determines if the Government of Canada (GC) ITS requirements for the CCCS Medium cloud security profile (previously referred to as GC’s Protected B/Medium Integrity/Medium Availability [PBMM] profile) are met as described in ITSG-33 (IT security risk management: A lifecycle approach). As of November 2022, 132 AWS services in the Canada (Central) Region have been assessed by the CCCS and meet the requirements for the CCCS Medium cloud security profile. Meeting the CCCS Medium cloud security profile is required to host workloads that are classified up to and including the medium categorization. On a periodic basis, CCCS assesses new or previously unassessed services and reassesses the AWS services that were previously assessed to verify that they continue to meet the GC’s requirements. CCCS prioritizes the assessment of new AWS services based on their availability in Canada, and on customer demand for the AWS services. The full list of AWS services that have been assessed by CCCS is available on our Services in Scope for CCCS Assessment page.
To learn more about the CCCS assessment or our other compliance and security programs, visit AWS Compliance Programs. As always, we value your feedback and questions; you can reach out to the AWS Compliance team through the Contact Us page.
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A growing number of regulations require organizations to report significant cybersecurity incidents. We’ve created a chart that summarizes 11 proposed and current cyber incident reporting regulations and breaks down their common elements, such as who must report, what cyber incidents must be reported, the deadline for reporting, and more.
This chart is intended as an educational tool to enhance the security community’s awareness of upcoming public policy actions, and provide a big picture look at how the incident reporting regulatory environment is unfolding. Please note, this chart is not comprehensive (there are even more incident reporting regulations out there!) and is only current as of August 8, 2022. Many of the regulations are subject to change.
This summary is for educational purposes only and nothing in this summary is intended as, or constitutes, legal advice.
Peter Woolverton led the research and initial drafting of this chart.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the first cloud service provider to produce an Open Security Control Assessment Language (OSCAL)–formatted system security plan (SSP) for the FedRAMP Project Management Office (PMO). OSCAL is the first step in the AWS effort to automate security documentation to simplify our customers’ journey through cloud adoption and accelerate the authorization to operate (ATO) process.
AWS continues its commitment to innovation and customer obsession. Our incorporation of the OSCAL format will improve the customer experience of reviewing and assessing security documentation. It can take an estimated 4,200 workforce hours for companies to receive an ATO, with much of the effort due to manual review and transcription of documentation. Automating this process through a machine-translatable language gives our customers the ability to ingest security documentation into a governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) tool to automate much of this time-consuming task. AWS worked with an AWS Partner, to ingest the AWS SSP through their tool, Xacta.
This is a first step in several initiatives AWS has planned to automate the security assurance process across multiple compliance frameworks. We continue to look for ways to earn trust with our customers, and over the next year we will continue to release new solutions that customers can use to rapidly deploy secure and innovative services.
“Providing the SSP packages in OSCAL is a great milestone in security automation marking the beginning of a new era in cybersecurity. We appreciate the leadership in this area and look forward to working with all cyber professionals, in particular with the visionary cloud service providers, to help deliver secure innovation faster to the people they serve.”
– Dr. Michaela Iorga, OSCAL Strategic Outreach Director, NIST
To learn more about OSCAL, visit the NIST OSCAL website. To learn more about FedRAMP’s plans for OSCAL, visit the FedRAMP Blog.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is excited to announce that AWS Wickr has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization at the Moderate impact level from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board (JAB).
FedRAMP is a U.S. government–wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud services by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies.
Customers find security and control in Wickr
AWS Wickr is an end-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration service with features designed to help keep your communications secure, private, and compliant. Wickr protects one-to-one and group messaging, voice and video calling, file sharing, screen sharing, and location sharing with 256-bit encryption, and provides data retention capabilities.
Administrative controls allow your AWS Wickr administrators to add, remove, and invite users, and organize them into security groups to manage messaging, calling, security, and federation settings. You can reset passwords and delete profiles remotely, helping you reduce the risk of data exposure stemming from a lost or stolen device.
You can log internal and external communications—including conversations with guest users, contractors, and other partner networks—in a private data store that you manage. This allows you to retain messages and files that are sent to and from your organization, to help meet requirements such as those that fall under the Federal Records Act (FRA) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The FedRAMP milestone
In obtaining a FedRAMP Moderate authorization, AWS Wickr has been measured against a set of security controls, procedures, and policies established by the U.S. Federal Government, based on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards.
“For many federal agencies and organizations, having the ability to securely communicate and share information—whether in an office or out in the field—is key to helping achieve their critical missions. AWS Wickr helps our government customers collaborate securely through messaging, calling, file and screen sharing with end-to-end encryption. The FedRAMP Moderate authorization for Wickr demonstrates our commitment to delivering solutions that give government customers the control and confidence they need to support their sensitive and regulated workloads.” – Christian Hoff, Director, US Federal Civilian & Health at AWS
FedRAMP on AWS
AWS is continually expanding the scope of our compliance programs to help you use authorized services for sensitive and regulated workloads. We now offer148 services authorized in the AWS US East/West Regions under FedRAMP Moderate authorization, and 128 services authorized in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions under FedRAMP High authorization.
The FedRAMP Moderate authorization of AWS Wickr further validates our commitment at AWS to public-sector customers. With AWS Wickr, you can combine the security of end-to-end encryption with the administrative flexibility you need to secure mission-critical communications, and keep up with recordkeeping requirements. AWS Wickr is available under FedRAMP Moderate in the AWS US East (N. Virginia) Region.
At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are committed to providing continued assurance to our customers through assessments, certifications, and attestations that support the adoption of AWS services. We are pleased to announce the availability of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) assessment summary report for AWS, which you can view and download on demand through AWS Artifact.
The CCCS is Canada’s authoritative source of cyber security expert guidance for the Canadian government, industry, and the general public. Public and commercial sector organizations across Canada rely on CCCS’s rigorous Cloud Service Provider (CSP) IT Security (ITS) assessment in their decision to use CSP services. In addition, CCCS’s ITS assessment process is a mandatory requirement for AWS to provide cloud services to Canadian federal government departments and agencies.
The CCCS Cloud Service Provider Information Technology Security Assessment Process determines if the Government of Canada (GC) ITS requirements for the CCCS Medium Cloud Security Profile (previously referred to as GC’s PROTECTED B/Medium Integrity/Medium Availability [PBMM] profile) are met as described in ITSG-33 (IT Security Risk Management: A Lifecycle Approach, Annex 3 – Security Control Catalogue). As of September, 2021, 120 AWS services in the Canada (Central) Region have been assessed by the CCCS, and meet the requirements for medium cloud security profile. Meeting the medium cloud security profile is required to host workloads that are classified up to and including medium categorization. On a periodic basis, CCCS assesses new or previously unassessed services and re-assesses the AWS services that were previously assessed to verify that they continue to meet the GC’s requirements. CCCS prioritizes the assessment of new AWS services based on their availability in Canada, and customer demand for the AWS services. The full list of AWS services that have been assessed by CCCS is available on our Services in Scope by Compliance Program page.
To learn more about the CCCS assessment or our other compliance and security programs, visit AWS Compliance Programs. If you have questions about this blog post, please start a new thread on the AWS Artifact forum or contact AWS Support.
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Rapport sommaire de l’évaluation du Centre canadien pour la cybersécurité disponible sur AWS Artifact
Par Robert Samuel, Naranjan Goklani et Brian Mycroft Amazon Web Services (AWS) s’engage à fournir à ses clients une assurance continue à travers des évaluations, des certifications et des attestations qui appuient l’adoption des services proposés par AWS. Nous avons le plaisir d’annoncer la mise à disposition du rapport sommaire de l’évaluation du Centre canadien pour la cybersécurité (CCCS) pour AWS, que vous pouvez dès à présent consulter et télécharger à la demande sur AWS Artifact.
Le CCC est l’autorité canadienne qui met son expertise en matière de cybersécurité au service du gouvernement canadien, du secteur privé et du grand public. Les organisations des secteurs public et privé établies au Canada dépendent de la rigoureuse évaluation de la sécurité des technologies de l’information s’appliquant aux fournisseurs de services infonuagiques conduite par le CCC pour leur décision relative à l’utilisation de ces services infonuagiques. De plus, le processus d’évaluation de la sécurité des technologies de l’information est une étape obligatoire pour permettre à AWS de fournir des services infonuagiques aux agences et aux ministères du gouvernement fédéral canadien.
Le Processus d’évaluation de la sécurité des technologies de l’information s’appliquant aux fournisseurs de services infonuagiques détermine si les exigences en matière de technologie de l’information du Gouvernement du Canada (GC) pour le profil de contrôle de la sécurité infonuagique moyen (précédemment connu sous le nom de Protégé B/Intégrité moyenne/Disponibilité moyenne) sont satisfaites conformément à l’ITSG-33 (Gestion des risques liés à la sécurité des TI : Une méthode axée sur le cycle de vie, Annexe 3 – Catalogue des contrôles de sécurité). En date de septembre 2021, 120 services AWS de la région (centrale) du Canada ont été évalués par le CCC et satisfont aux exigences du profil de sécurité moyen du nuage. Satisfaire les exigences du niveau moyen du nuage est nécessaire pour héberger des applications classées jusqu’à la catégorie moyenne incluse. Le CCC évalue périodiquement les nouveaux services, ou les services qui n’ont pas encore été évalués, et réévalue les services AWS précédemment évalués pour s’assurer qu’ils continuent de satisfaire aux exigences du Gouvernement du Canada. Le CCC priorise l’évaluation des nouveaux services AWS selon leur disponibilité au Canada et en fonction de la demande des clients pour les services AWS. La liste complète des services AWS évalués par le CCC est consultable sur notre page Services AWS concernés par le programme de conformité.
Pour en savoir plus sur l’évaluation du CCC ainsi que sur nos autres programmes de conformité et de sécurité, visitez la page Programmes de conformité AWS. Comme toujours, nous accordons beaucoup de valeur à vos commentaires et à vos questions; vous pouvez communiquer avec l’équipe Conformité AWS via la page Communiquer avec nous.
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Biographies des auteurs :
Rob Samuel : Rob Samuel est responsable technique principal d’AWS Security Assurance. Il collabore avec les équipes AWS pour traduire les principes de protection des données en recommandations techniques, aligne la direction technique et les priorités, met en œuvre les nouvelles solutions techniques, aide à intégrer les solutions de sécurité et de confidentialité aux services et fonctionnalités proposés par AWS et répond aux exigences et aux attentes en matière de confidentialité et de sécurité transversale. Rob a plus de 20 ans d’expérience dans le secteur de la technologie et a déjà occupé des fonctions dirigeantes, comme directeur de l’assurance sécurité pour AWS Canada, responsable de la cybersécurité et des systèmes d’information (RSSI) pour la province de la Nouvelle-Écosse, divers postes à responsabilités en tant que fonctionnaire et a servi dans les Forces armées canadiennes en tant qu’officier du génie électronique et des communications.
Naranjan Goklani : Naranjan Goklani est responsable des audits de sécurité pour AWS, il est basé à Toronto (Canada). Il est responsable des audits, des attestations, des certifications et des évaluations pour l’Amérique du Nord et l’Europe. Naranjan a plus de 12 ans d’expérience dans la gestion des risques, l’assurance de la sécurité et la réalisation d’audits de technologie. Naranjan a exercé dans l’une des quatre plus grandes sociétés de comptabilité et accompagné des clients des industries de la distribution, du commerce en ligne et des services publics.
Brian Mycroft : Brian Mycroft est technologue en chef pour AWS, il est basé à Ottawa (Canada) et se spécialise dans la sécurité nationale, le renseignement et le gouvernement fédéral du Canada. Brian est l’architecte principal de l’AWS Secure Environment Accelerator (ASEA) et s’intéresse principalement à la suppression des barrières à l’adoption du nuage pour le secteur public.
On March 9, 2022, the US Congress passed the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022. Once signed by the President, it will become law. The law will require critical infrastructure owners and operators to report cyber incidents and ransomware payments. The legislation was developed in the wake of the SolarWinds supply chain attack and recently gained additional momentum from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This post will walk through highlights from the law.
Rapid7 supports efforts to increase transparency and information sharing in order to strengthen awareness of the cybersecurity threat landscape and prepare for cyberattacks. We applaud passage of the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act.
What’s this law about?
TheCyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act will require critical infrastructure owners and operators — such as water and energy utilities, health care organizations, some IT providers, etc. — to submit reports to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for cybersecurity incidents and ransomware payments. The law will provide liability protections for submitting reports to encourage compliance, but noncompliance can result in a civil lawsuit. The law will also require the government to analyze, anonymize, and share information from the reports to provide agencies, Congress, companies, and the public with a better view of the cyber threat landscape.
An important note about the timeline: The requirements do not take effect until CISA issues a clarifying regulation. The law will require CISA to issue this regulation within 42 months (though CISA may take less time), so the requirements may not be imminent. In the meantime, the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act provides information on what CISA’s future rule must address.
We detail these items from the law below.
Requiring reporting of cyber incidents and ransom payments
Report requirement.Critical infrastructure owners and operators must report substantial cybersecurity incidents to CISA, as well as any ransom payments. (However, as described below, this requirement does not come into effect until CISA issues a regulation.)
Type of incident. The types of cyber incidents that must be reported shall include actual breaches of sensitive information and attacks that disrupt business or operations. Mere threats or failed attacks do not need to be reported.
Report timeline. For a cyber incident, the report must be submitted within 72 hours after the affected organization determines the incident is substantial enough that it must be reported. For ransom payments, the report must be submitted within 24 hours after the payment is made.
Report contents.The reports must include a list of information, including attacker tactics and techniques. Information related to the incident must be preserved until the incident is fully resolved.
Enforcement. If an entity does not comply with reporting requirements, CISA may issue a subpoena to compel entities to produce the required information. The Justice Department may initiate a civil lawsuit to enforce the subpoena. Entities that do not comply with the subpoena may be found in contempt of court.
CISA rule to fill in details
Rule requirement. CISA is required to issue a regulation that will establish details on the reporting requirements. The reporting requirements do not take effect until this regulation is final.
Rule timeline. CISA has up to 42 months to finalize the rule (but the agency can choose to take less time).
Rule contents. The rule will establish the types of cyber incidents that must be reported, the types of critical infrastructure entities that must report, the content to be included in the reports, the mechanism for submitting the reports, and the details for preserving data related to the reports.
Protections for submitting reports
Not used for regulation. Reports submitted to CISA cannot be used to regulate the activities of the entity that submitted the report.
Privileges preserved. The covered entity may designate the reports as commercial and proprietary information. Submission of a report shall not be considered a waiver of any privilege or legal protection.
No liability for submitting. No court may maintain a cause of action against any person or entity on the sole basis of submitting a report in compliance with this law.
Cannot be used as evidence. Reports, and material used to prepare the reports, cannot be received as evidence or used in discovery proceedings in any federal or state court or regulatory body.
What the government will do with the report information
Authorized purposes. The federal government may use the information in the reports cybersecurity purposes, responding to safety or serious economic threats, and preventing child exploitation.
Rapid response. For reports on ongoing threats, CISA must rapidly disseminate cyber threat indicators and defensive measures with stakeholders.
Information sharing. CISA must analyze reports and share information with other federal agencies, Congress, private sector stakeholders, and the public. CISA’s information sharing must include assessment of the effectiveness of security controls, adversary tactics and techniques, and the national cyber threat landscape.
What’s Rapid7’s view of the law?
Rapid7 views the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act as a positive step. Cybersecurity is essential to ensure critical infrastructure is safe, and this law would give federal agencies more insight into attack trends, and would potentially help provide early warnings of major vulnerabilities or attacks in progress before they spread. The law carefully avoids requiring reports too early in the incident response process and provides protections to encourage companies to be open and transparent in their reports.
Still, the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act does little to ensure critical infrastructure has safeguards that prevent cyber incidents from occurring in the first place. This law is unlikely to change the fact that many critical infrastructure entities are under-resourced and, in some cases, have security maturity that is not commensurate with the risks they face. The law’s enforcement mechanism (a potential contempt of court penalty) is not especially strong, and the final reporting rules may not be implemented for another 3.5 years. Ultimately, the law’s effect may be similar to state breach notification laws, which raised awareness but did not prompt widespread adoption of security safeguards for personal information until states implemented data security laws.
So, the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act is a needed and helpful improvement — but, as always, there is more to be done.
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AWS is pleased to announce that 15 additional AWS services have achieved Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board (JAB).
AWS is continually expanding the scope of our compliance programs to help customers use authorized services for sensitive and regulated workloads. AWS now offers 111 AWS services authorized in the AWS US East/West Regions under FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, and 91 services authorized in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions under FedRAMP High Authorization.
Figure 1. Newly authorized services list
Descriptions of AWS Services now in FedRAMP P-ATO
These additional AWS services now provide the following capabilities for the U.S. federal government and customers with regulated workloads:
Amazon Detective simplifies analyzing, investigating, and quickly identifying the root cause of potential security issues or suspicious activities. Amazon Detective automatically collects log data from your AWS resources, and uses machine learning, statistical analysis, and graph theory to build a linked set of data enabling you to easily conduct faster and more efficient security investigations.
Amazon FSx for Lustre provides fully managed shared storage with the scalability and performance of the popular Lustre file system.
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server provides fully managed shared storage built on Windows Server, and delivers a wide range of data access, data management, and administrative capabilities.
Amazon Kendra is an intelligent search service powered by machine learning (ML).
Amazon Lex is an AWS service for building conversational interfaces into applications using voice and text.
Amazon Macie is a fully managed data security and data privacy service that uses machine learning and pattern matching to discover and protect your sensitive data in AWS.
Amazon MQ is a managed message broker service for Apache ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ that simplifies setting up and operating message brokers on AWS.
AWS CloudHSM is a cloud-based hardware security module (HSM) that lets you generate and use your own encryption keys on the AWS Cloud.
AWS Cloud Map is a cloud resource discovery service. With Cloud Map, you can define custom names for your application resources, and CloudMap maintains the updated location of these dynamically changing resources.
AWS Glue DataBrew is a new visual data preparation tool that lets data analysts and data scientists quickly clean and normalize data to prepare it for analytics and machine learning.
AWS Outposts (hardware excluded) is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to customer premises. By providing local access to AWS managed infrastructure, AWS Outposts enables you to build and run applications on premises using the same programming interfaces used in AWS Regions, while using local compute and storage resources for lower latency and local data processing needs.
AWS Resource Groups grants you the ability to organize your AWS resources, managing and automating tasks for large numbers of resources at the same time.
AWS Snowmobile is an Exabyte-scale data transfer service used to move extremely large amounts of data to AWS. You can transfer up to 100PB per Snowmobile, a 45-foot long ruggedized shipping container, pulled by a semi-trailer truck. After an initial assessment, a Snowmobile will be transported to your data center and AWS personnel will configure it so it can be accessed as a network storage target. After you load your data, the Snowmobile is driven back to an AWS regional data center, where AWS imports the data into Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).
Heads up financial institutions: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the first cybersecurity updates to the Gramm Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) Safeguards Rule since 2003. The new rule strengthens the required security safeguards for customer information. This includes formal risk assessments, access controls, regular penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, and incident response capabilities, among other things.
Several of these changes go into effect in November 2022, to provide organizations time to prepare for compliance. Below, we’ll detail the changes in comparison to the previous rule.
Background on the Safeguards Rule
GLBA requires, among other things, a wide range of “financial institutions” to protect customer information. Enforcement for GLBA is split up among several different federal agencies, with FTC jurisdiction covering non-banking financial institutions in the Safeguards Rule. Previously, the Safeguards Rule left the implementation details of several aspects of the information security program up to the financial institution, based on its risk assessment.
The Safeguards Rule broad definition of “financial institutions” includes non-bank businesses that offer financial products or services — such as retailers, automobile dealers, mortgage brokers, non-bank lenders, property appraisers, tax preparers, and others. The definition of “customer information” is also broad, to include any record containing non-public personally identifiable information about a customer that is handled or maintained by or on behalf of a financial institution.
Updates to the Safeguards Rule
Many of the other updates concern strengthened requirements on how financial institutions must implement aspects of their security programs. Below is a short summary of changes. Where applicable, we include citations to both the updated rule (starting at page 123) and the previous rule (at 16 USC 314) for easy comparison.
Overall security program
Current rule: Financial institutions must maintain a comprehensive, written information security program with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to ensure the security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer information. 16 USC 314.3(a)-(b).
Updated rule: The updated rule now requires the information security program to include the processes and safeguards listed below (i.e., risk assessment, security safeguards, etc.). 16 USC 314.3(a).
Approx. effective date: November 2022
Risk assessment
Current rule: Financial institutions are required to identify internal and external risks to security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer information. The risk assessment must include employee training, risks to information systems, and detecting and responding to security incidents and events. 16 USC 314.4(b).
Updated rule: The update includes more specific criteria for what the risk assessment must include. This includes criteria for evaluating and categorizing of security risks and threats, and criteria for assessing the adequacy of security safeguards. The risk assessment must describe how identified risks will be mitigated or accepted. The risk assessment must be in writing. 16 USC 314.4(b).
Approx. effective date: November 2022
Security safeguards
Current rule: Financial institutions must implement safeguards to control the risks identified through the risk assessment. 16 USC 314.4(c). Financial institutions must require service providers to maintain safeguards to protect customer information. 16 USC 314.4(d).
Updated rule: The updated rule requires that the safeguards must include – Access controls, including providing the least privilege; – Inventory and classification of data, devices, and systems; – Encryption of customer information at rest and in transit over internal networks; – Secure development practices for in-house software and applications; – Multi-factor authentication; – Secure data disposal; – Change management procedures; and – Monitoring activity of unauthorized users and detecting unauthorized access or use of customer information. 16 USC 314.4(c)(1)-(8).
Approx. effective date: November 2022
Testing and evaluation
Current rule: Financial institutions must regularly test or monitor the effectiveness of the security safeguards, and make adjustments based on the testing. 16 USC 314.4(c), (e).
Updated rule: Regular testing of safeguards must now include either continuous monitoring or periodic penetration testing (annually) and vulnerability assessments (semi-annually). 16 USC 314.4(d).
Approx. effective date: November 2022
Incident response
Current rule: Financial institutions must include cybersecurity incident detection and response in their risk assessments, and have safeguards to address those risks. 16 USC 314.4(b)(3)-(c).
Updated rule: Financial institutions are required to establish a written plan for responding to any security event materially affecting confidentiality, integrity, or availability of customer information. 16 USC 314.4(h).
Approx. effective date: November 2022
Workforce and personnel
Current rule: Financial institutions must designate an employee to coordinate the information security program. 16 USC 314.4(a). Financial institutions must select service providers that can maintain security and require service providers to implement the safeguards. 16 USC 314.4(d).
Updated rule: The rule now requires designation of a single “qualified individual” to be responsible for the security program. This can be a third-party contractor. 16 USC 314.4(a). Financial institutions must now provide security awareness training and updates to personnel. 16 USC 314.4(e). The rule now also requires periodic reports to a Board of Directors or governing body regarding all material matters related to the information security program. 16 USC 314.4(i).
Approx. effective date: November 2022
Scope of coverage
Updated rule: The FTC update expands on the definition of “financial institution” to require “finders” — companies that bring together buyers and sellers — to follow the Safeguards Rule. 16 USC 314.2(h)(1). However, financial institutions that maintain information on fewer than 5,000 consumers are exempt from the requirements of a written risk assessment, continuous monitoring or periodic pentesting and/or vulnerability scans, incident response plan, and annual reporting to the Board. 16 USC 314.6.
Approx. effective date: November 2021 (unlike many of the other updates, this item is not delayed for a year)
Incident reporting next?
In addition to the above, the FTC is also considering requirements that financial institutions report cybersecurity incidents and events to the FTC. Similar requirements are in place under the Cybersecurity Regulation at the New York Department of Financial Services. If the FTC moves forward with these incident reporting requirements, financial institutions could expect the requirements to be implemented later in 2022 or early 2023.
Financial institutions with robust security programs will already be performing many of these practices. For them, the updated Safeguards Rule will not represent a sea change in internal security operations. However, by making these security practices a formal regulatory requirement, the updated Safeguards will make accountability and compliance even more important.
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We’re pleased to announce that 18 additional AWS services have achieved Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board (JAB). The following are the 18 additional services with FedRAMP authorization for the US federal government, and organizations with regulated workloads:
Amazon Cognito lets you add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to their web and mobile apps quickly and easily.
Amazon Comprehend Medical is a HIPAA-eligible natural language processing (NLP) service that uses machine learning to extract health data from medical text–no machine learning experience is required.
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) is a managed container service that gives you the flexibility to start, run, and scale Kubernetes applications in the AWS cloud or on-premises.
Amazon Pinpoint is a flexible and scalable outbound and inbound marketing communications service.
Amazon QuickSight is a scalable, serverless, embeddable, machine learning-powered business intelligence (BI) service built for the cloud that lets you easily create and publish interactive BI dashboards that include Machine Learning-powered insights.
Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is a cost-effective, flexible, and scalable email service that enables developers to send mail from within any application.
Amazon Textract is a machine learning service that automatically extracts text, handwriting, and other data from scanned documents that goes beyond simple optical character recognition (OCR) to identify, understand, and extract data from forms and tables.
AWS Backup enables you to centralize and automate data protection across AWS services.
AWS CloudHSM is a cloud-based hardware security module (HSM) that enables you to easily generate and use your own encryption keys on the AWS Cloud.
AWS CodePipeline is a fully managed continuous delivery service that helps you automate your release pipelines for fast and reliable application and infrastructure updates.
AWS Ground Station is a fully managed service that lets you control satellite communications, process data, and scale your operations without having to worry about building or managing your own ground station infrastructure.
AWS OpsWorks for Chef Automate and AWS OpsWorks for Puppet Enterprise. AWS OpsWorks for Chef Automate provides a fully managed Chef Automate server and suite of automation tools that give you workflow automation for continuous deployment, automated testing for compliance and security, and a user interface that gives you visibility into your nodes and node statuses. AWS OpsWorks for Puppet Enterprise is a fully managed configuration management service that hosts Puppet Enterprise, a set of automation tools from Puppet for infrastructure and application management.
AWS Personal Health Dashboard provides alerts and guidance for AWS events that might affect your environment, and provides proactive and transparent notifications about your specific AWS environment.
AWS Resource Groups grants you the ability to organize your AWS resources, and manage and automate tasks on large numbers of resources at one time.
AWS Security Hub is a cloud security posture management service that performs security best practice checks, aggregates alerts, and enables automated remediation.
AWS Storage Gateway is a set of hybrid cloud storage services that gives you on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage.
AWS Systems Manager provides a unified user interface so you can track and resolve operational issues across your AWS applications and resources from a central place.
AWS X-Ray helps developers analyze and debug production, distributed applications, such as those built using a microservices architecture.
AWS is continually expanding the scope of our compliance programs to help customers use authorized services for sensitive and regulated workloads. Today, AWS offers 100 AWS services authorized in the AWS US East/West Regions under FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, and 90 services authorized in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions under FedRAMP High Authorization.
This post is part of a series about how Amazon Web Services (AWS) can help your US federal agency meet the requirements of the President’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. You will learn how you can use AWS information security practices to meet the requirement to encrypt your data at rest and in transit, to the maximum extent possible.
Encrypt your data at rest in AWS
Data at rest represents any data that you persist in non-volatile storage for any duration in your workload. This includes block storage, object storage, databases, archives, IoT devices, and any other storage medium on which data is persisted. Protecting your data at rest reduces the risk of unauthorized access when encryption and appropriate access controls are implemented.
AWS KMS provides a streamlined way to manage keys used for at-rest encryption. It integrates with AWS services to simplify using your keys to encrypt data across your AWS workloads. It uses hardware security modules that have been validated under FIPS 140-2 to protect your keys. You choose the level of access control that you need, including the ability to share encrypted resources between accounts and services. AWS KMS logs key usage to AWS CloudTrail to provide an independent view of who accessed encrypted data, including AWS services that are using keys on your behalf. As of this writing, AWS KMS integrates with 81 different AWS services. Here are details on recommended encryption for workloads using some key services:
Encrypt an instance store root volume for an Amazon EC2 instance for added protection of configuration files and data stored with the operating system
You can use AWS KMS to encrypt other data types including application data with client-side encryption. A client-side application or JavaScript encrypts data before uploading it to S3 or other storage resources. As a result, uploaded data is protected in transit and at rest. Customer options for client-side encryption include the AWS SDK for KMS, the AWS Encryption SDK, and use of third-party encryption tools.
You can also use AWS Secrets Manager to encrypt application passwords, connection strings, and other secrets. Database credentials, resource names, and other sensitive data used in AWS Lambda functions can be encrypted and accessed at run time. This increases the security of these secrets and allows for easier credential rotation.
KMS HSMs are FIPS 140-2 validated and accessible using FIPS validated endpoints. Agencies with additional requirements that require a FIPS 140-3 validated hardware security module (HSM) (for example, for securing third-party secrets managers) can use AWS CloudHSM.
For more information about AWS KMS and key management best practices, visit these resources:
In addition to encrypting data at rest, agencies must also encrypt data in transit. AWS provides a variety of solutions to help agencies encrypt data in transit and enforce this requirement.
First, all network traffic between AWS data centers is transparently encrypted at the physical layer. This data-link layer encryption includes traffic within an AWS Region as well as between Regions. Additionally, all traffic within a virtual private cloud (VPC) and between peered VPCs is transparently encrypted at the network layer when you are using supported Amazon EC2 instance types. Customers can choose to enable Transport Layer Security (TLS) for the applications they build on AWS using a variety of services. All AWS service endpoints support TLS to create a secure HTTPS connection to make API requests.
AWS offers several options for agency-managed infrastructure within the AWS Cloud that needs to terminate TLS. These options include load balancing services (for example, Elastic Load Balancing, Network Load Balancer, and Application Load Balancer), Amazon CloudFront (a content delivery network), and Amazon API Gateway. Each of these endpoint services enable customers to upload their digital certificates for the TLS connection. Digital certificates then need to be managed appropriately to account for expiration and rotation requirements. AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) simplifies generating, distributing, and rotating digital certificates. ACM offers publicly trusted certificates that can be used in AWS services that require certificates to terminate TLS connections to the internet. ACM also provides the ability to create a private certificate authority (CA) hierarchy that can integrate with existing on-premises CAs to automatically generate, distribute, and rotate certificates to secure internal communication among customer-managed infrastructure.
This post has reviewed services that are used to encrypt data at rest and in transit, following the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. I discussed the use of AWS KMS to manage encryption keys that handle the management of keys for at-rest encryption, as well as the use of ACM to manage certificates that protect data in transit.
Next steps
To learn more about how AWS can help you meet the requirements of the executive order, see the other posts in this series:
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.
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