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Amazon Web Services: Security Processes

Author: Madhu Dm
by Madhu Dm
Posted: Apr 25, 2019
Introduction

Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers a scalable cloud computing platform with high availability and dependability, providing the tools that enable customers to run a wide range of applications. Helping to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our customers’ systems and data is of the utmost importance to AWS, as is maintaining customer trust and confidence.

Shared Security Responsibility Model

Before we go into the details of how AWS secures its resources, we should talk about how security in the cloud is slightly different than security in your on- premises data centers. When you move computer systems and data to the cloud, security responsibilities become shared between you and your cloud service provider. In this case, AWS is responsible for securing the underlying infrastructure that supports the cloud, and you’re responsible for anything you put on the cloud or connect to the cloud. This shared security responsibility model can reduce your operational burden in many ways, and in some cases may even improve your default security posture without additional action on your part.

The amount of security configuration work you have to do varies depending on which services you select and how sensitive your data is. However, there are certain security features?—?such as individual user accounts and credentials, SSL/TLS for data transmissions, and user activity logging?—?that you should configure no matter which AWS service you use. For more information about these security features, see the "AWS Account Security Features" section below. To get in-Depth knowledge on AWS with DevOps Learn AWS Online Training.

AWS Security Responsibilities

Amazon Web Services is responsible for protecting the global infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS cloud. This infrastructure is comprised of the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run AWS services. Protecting this infrastructure is AWS’s number one priority, and while you can’t visit our data centers or offices to see this protection firsthand, we provide several reports from third-party auditors who have verified our compliance with a variety of computer security standards and regulations (for more information, visit (aws.amazon.com/compliance).

Note that in addition to protecting this global infrastructure, AWS is responsible for the security configuration of its products that are considered managed services. Examples of these types of services include Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Elastic MapReduce, Amazon WorkSpaces, and several other services. These services provide the scalability and flexibility of cloud-based resources with the additional benefit of being managed. For these services, AWS will handle basic security tasks like guest operating system (OS) and database patching, firewall configuration, and disaster recovery. For most of these managed services, all you have to do is configure logical access controls for the resources and protect your account credentials. A few of them may require additional tasks, such as setting up database user accounts, but overall the security configuration work is performed by the service. For More Learn AWS Online Training and Get AWS Certification.

Customer Security Responsibilities

With the AWS cloud, you can provision virtual servers, storage, databases, and desktops in minutes instead of weeks. You can also use cloud-based analytics and workflow tools to process your data as you need it, and then store it in your own data centers or in the cloud. Which AWS services you use will determine how much configuration work you have to perform as part of your security responsibilities.

AWS products that fall into the well-understood category of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) such as Amazon EC2, Amazon VPC, and Amazon S3 are completely under your control and require you to perform all of the necessary security configuration and management tasks. For example, for EC2 instances, you’re responsible for management of the guest OS (including updates and security patches), any application software or utilities you install on the instances, and the configuration of the AWS-provided firewall (called a security group) on each instance. These are basically the same security tasks that you’re used to performing no matter where your servers are located.

AWS managed services like Amazon RDS or Amazon Redshift provide all of the resources you need in order to perform a specific task?—?but without the configuration work that can come with them. With managed services, you don’t have to worry about launching and maintaining instances, patching the guest OS or database, or replicating databases?—?AWS handles that for you. But as with all services, you should protect your AWS Account credentials and set up individual user accounts with Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) so that each of your users has their own credentials and you can implement segregation of duties. We also recommend using multi-factor authentication (MFA) with each account, requiring the use of SSL/TLS to communicate with your AWS resources, and setting up API/user activity logging with AWS CloudTrail. For more information about additional measures you can take, refer to the AWS Security Best Practices whitepaper and recommended reading on the AWS Security Resources webpage. Take your career to new heights of success with aOnline Training.

About the Author

I am a Cloud Developer and Content Writer and We also Providing the Online Training's like Aws Online Training

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Author: Madhu Dm

Madhu Dm

Member since: Apr 19, 2019
Published articles: 2

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