Tag Archives: MEL Region

Updated Essential Eight guidance for Australian customers

Post Syndicated from James Kingsmill original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/updated-essential-eight-guidance-for-australian-customers/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is excited to announce the release of AWS Prescriptive Guidance on Reaching Essential Eight Maturity on AWS. We designed this guidance to help customers streamline and accelerate their security compliance obligations under the Essential Eight framework of the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC).

What is the Essential Eight?

The Essential Eight is a security framework that the ACSC designed to help organizations protect themselves against various cyber threats. The Essential Eight covers the following eight strategies:

  • Application control
  • Patch applications
  • Configure Microsoft Office macro settings
  • User application hardening
  • Restrict administrative privileges
  • Patch operating systems
  • Multi-factor authentication
  • Regular backups

The Department of Home Affairs’ Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) mandates that Australian Non-Corporate Commonwealth Entities (NCCEs) reach Essential Eight maturity. The Essential Eight is also one of the compliance frameworks available to owners of critical infrastructure (CI) assets under the Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program (CIRMP) requirements of the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act.

In the Essential Eight Explained, the ACSC acknowledges some translation is required when applying the principles of the Essential Eight to cloud-based environments:

“The Essential Eight has been designed to protect Microsoft Windows-based internet-connected networks. While the principles behind the Essential Eight may be applied to cloud services and enterprise mobility, or other operating systems, it was not primarily designed for such purposes and alternative mitigation strategies may be more appropriate to mitigate unique cyber threats to these environments.”

The newly released guidance walks customers step-by-step through the process of reaching Essential Eight maturity in a cloud native way, making best use of the security, performance, innovation, elasticity, scalability, and resiliency benefits of the AWS Cloud. It includes a compliance matrix that maps Essential Eight strategies and controls to specific guidance and AWS resources.

It also features an example of a customer with different workloads—a serverless data lake, a containerized webservice, and an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) workload running commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software.

For more information, see Reaching Essential Eight Maturity on AWS on the AWS Prescriptive Guidance page. You can also reach out to your account team or engage AWS Professional Services, our global team of experts that can help customers realize their desired security and business outcomes on AWS.

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James Kingsmill

James Kingsmill

James is a Senior Solutions Architect on the Australian public sector team. As a member of the enterprise federal team, he has a longstanding interest in helping public sector customers achieve their transformation, automation, and security goals.

Manuwai Korber

Manuwai Korber

Manuwai is a Solutions Architect based in Sydney who specializes in the field of machine learning. He is dedicated to helping Australian public sector organizations build reliable systems that improve the experience of citizens.

2023 H1 IRAP report is now available on AWS Artifact for Australian customers

Post Syndicated from Patrick Chang original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/2023-h1-irap-report-is-now-available-on-aws-artifact-for-australian-customers/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is excited to announce that a new Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) report (2023 H1) is now available through AWS Artifact. An independent Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) certified IRAP assessor completed the IRAP assessment of AWS in August 2023.

The new IRAP report includes an additional six AWS services, as well as the new AWS Local Zone in Perth, that are now assessed at the PROTECTED level under IRAP. This brings the total number of services assessed at the PROTECTED level to 145.

The following are the six newly assessed services:

For the full list of services, see the IRAP tab on the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program page.

AWS has developed an IRAP documentation pack to assist Australian government agencies and their partners to plan, architect, and assess risk for their workloads when they use AWS Cloud services.

We developed this pack in accordance with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Cloud Security Guidance and Cloud Assessment and Authorisation framework, which addresses guidance within the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM), the Department of Home Affairs’ Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF), and the Digital Transformation Agency Secure Cloud Strategy.

The IRAP pack on AWS Artifact also includes newly updated versions of the AWS Consumer Guide and the whitepaper Reference Architectures for ISM PROTECTED Workloads in the AWS Cloud.

Reach out to your AWS representatives to let us know which additional services you would like to see in scope for upcoming IRAP assessments. We strive to bring more services into scope at the PROTECTED level under IRAP to support your requirements.

 
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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Patrick Chang

Patrick Chang

Patrick is the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) Audit Lead at AWS. He leads security audits, certifications, and compliance programs across the APJ region. Patrick is a technology risk and audit professional with over a decade of experience. He is passionate about delivering assurance programs that build trust with customers and provide them assurance on cloud security.

AWS Melbourne Region has achieved HCF Strategic Certification

Post Syndicated from Lori Klaassen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-melbourne-region-has-achieved-hcf-strategic-certification/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is delighted to confirm that our new AWS Melbourne Region has achieved Strategic Certification for the Australian Government’s Hosting Certification Framework (HCF).

We know that maintaining security and resiliency to keep critical data and infrastructure safe is a top priority for the Australian Government and all our customers in Australia. The Strategic Certification of both the existing Sydney and the new Melbourne Regions reinforces our ongoing commitment to meet security expectations for cloud service providers and means Australian citizens can now have even greater confidence that the Government is securing their data.

The HCF provides guidance to government customers to identify cloud providers that meet enhanced privacy, sovereignty, and security requirements. The expanded scope of the AWS HCF Strategic Certification gives Australian Government customers additional architectural options, including the ability to store backup data in geographically separated locations within Australia.

Our AWS infrastructure is custom-built for the cloud and designed to meet the most stringent security requirements in the world, and is monitored 24/7 to help support the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customers’ data. All data flowing across the AWS global network that interconnects our data centers and Regions is automatically encrypted at the physical layer before it leaves our secured facilities. We will continue to expand the scope of our security assurance programs at AWS and are pleased that Australian Government customers can continue to innovate at a rapid pace and be confident AWS meets the Government’s requirements to support the secure management of government systems and data.

The Melbourne Region was officially added to the AWS HCF Strategic Certification on December 21, 2022, and the Sydney Region was certified in October 2021. AWS compliance status is available on the HCF Certified Service Providers website, and the Certificate of Compliance 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. AWS has also achieved many international certifications and accreditations, demonstrating compliance with third-party assurance frameworks such as ISO 27017 for cloud security, ISO 27018 for cloud privacy, and SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3.

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.

Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions or feedback about HCF compliance.

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Lori Klaassen

Lori Klaassen

Lori is a Senior Regulatory Specialist on the AWS Security Assurance team. She supports the operationalisation and ongoing assurance of direct regulatory oversight programs in ANZ.