Amazon Web Services (AWS), is perhaps bigger than the e-commerce giant itself at present.
It is arguably the largest cloud service provider in the world with tons of features and functionalities.
From small businesses to startups to government agencies, everyone is using AWS nowadays.
But are you really secure using AWS services?
Any cloud-based service would be susceptible to security issues.
First, there are way too many variables that can go wrong.
Second, the fault may not even be with the AWS architecture. There might be mistakes on the part of end-users as well.
In this article, we will be discussing the safety issues and measures of AWS.
There are many things that you can do to improve security in your AWS account. If you have a dedicated security team, taking care of these things would be easy. Otherwise, it can often take a lot of time.
Are you really secure using AWS services?
Some of the areas we will look into include providing accurate account information, centralizing CloudTrail logs, limiting security groups, and a lot more.
Note that these are highly technical areas and no one should dabble with these without relevant skills and experience.
Limiting security groups
Security groups are vital for the overall functioning of your AWS account.
Security groups refer to extending access to people and resources that you have selected. You can change these settings from AWS Config or AWS Firewall Manager. While the steps in themselves are complicated, the underlying idea is very simple.
When you are running a website or an online business, there are a lot of other entities and people you need to work with.
However, giving all of them access to sensitive information on your end is not a wise move. It makes your website insecure and increases the chances of a data breach.
When dealing with sensitive data, it is almost never a good idea to give everyone access to it. Keeping the same principle in mind, it is better to limit your security groups to make AWS more secure.
Using MFA (Multi-factor authentication)
Many of us are now aware of 2-factor authentication and use the same feature even in our social media accounts.
Multi-factor authentication takes security to a much higher level than 2-factor authentication can. Thats why it is very important to turn it on and always use it.
You can find out everything you need to know about Multi-factor authentication from the official AWS documentation.
It is always a good idea to keep multi-factor authentication turned on. It reduces the chances of any leaks and breaches and is pretty simple to set up. Its among the first things that you should do to secure your AWS account.
Providing accurate information
If you are not providing accurate information, there cannot be any way to restore things if your AWS account ever faces problems.
Thats why it is very important to check and rec-check all the credentials and contact information you provide for your AWS account.
On top of that, it is very important to ensure that the email addresses you have used are functional. You must also reply to all security notifications from [email protected]. You can also set alternate contacts to make sure someone is accessing security notifications even in your absence.
Hiring security experts
Even if its not apparent by now, you will soon realize that managing security in AWS is a specialized task. Not everyone can do it, at least unless they have read and learned enough.
Barring exceptions, few business owners and entrepreneurs would have the time to learn AWS security from scratch, especially if they do not have any experience in it. Thats why it becomes so important to hire someone who knows what they are doing.
Having a security expert on board will make life much easier for you.
An AWS security expert must also be well versed with the best AWS practices. A simple AWS assessment test is the best way to gauge the performance of the candidates. With readily available online tests, it would not require a lot of effort to conduct a basic screening of all the candidates.
Making the most of Amazon CloudTrail
Amazon CloudTrail allows the administrator to monitor every event that happens across their cloud infrastructure. It is one of the easiest ways to make sure your account is secure from threats and attacks.
When you have a record of every suspicious activity, it becomes very easy to trace back to the source.
With Amazon CloudWatch integration, employees can also get alerts for every suspicious activity. You can also set predetermined actions for any time such an activity is detected.
If you are not making the most of Amazon CloudTrail, you are missing out on one of the best safety features of AWS.
Restricting usage of the root account
The root account has the capability to handle every aspect of your AWS account. When you are getting started with AWS, it is inevitable to use the root account frequently. With time and after you have set up IAM users, the need for using the root account would go down.
You must aim to use the root account as little as possible. Thats because the more you use it, the more open to threats it becomes.
To keep things safer, move to an IAM account for day-to-day operations.
Whoever has access to the root account has access to every element of your AWS account. You would not want to risk losing everything due to small negligence here and there.
To make sure that your root account stays safe, try to use it only when absolutely necessary.
For example, carding attacks could become widespread if someone gets access to the root account. Carding attacks, or card cracking attacks, refer to using bots to steal credentials from credit cards. It is one of the most common avenues for cybercrime on e-commerce websites. Restricting the use of the root account will also decrease the chances of carding attacks.
Using Amazon GuardDuty
AWS is built with tools that already make the platform very safe. Apart from CloudTrail, another such tool is Amazon GuardDuty. It automatically scans for all threats to your systems and warns accordingly.
Amazon GuardDuty takes data from Amazon CloudTrail to assess threat levels. Using both these tools in conjunction will make AWS much more secure and safe. It is among the first things that you should do to secure AWS services.
Amazon GuardDuty uses advanced machine learning algorithms to accurately recognize patterns from the data it gets from Amazon CloudTrail.
Avoiding hard coding secrets
You can always use AWS IAM responsibilities to give short-lived privileges for accessing AWS services when developing applications on AWS.
Few apps, however, need credentials that are valid for a longer period of time, like database credentials or any other API key. If that’s the case, you must never save these keys in the codebase or hard code them into the app.
AWS Secrets Manager can be used to organize the data in your application. Using Secrets Manager, you can rotate, maintain, and recover database keys, APIs, and other classified info at any point in their cycle. Secrets Manager APIs allow users and programs to obtain keys, removing the need to hard code confidential data in text.
Validating IAM roles
You might have to create many IAM roles as you run your AWS accounts to improve and develop capability.
Later on, you’ll realize that you don’t require all of them. Evaluate access to any internal AWS services with the AWS IAM Access Analyzer, to see where you inadvertently shared access outside of your AWS accounts.
Reassessing AWS IAM roles and permissions on a regular basis with Security Hub or open-source tools will provide you with the information you need to ensure compliance with your GRC standards.
If you’ve already arrived at this point and created many roles, you can look for and delete any unnecessary IAM roles.
Working on security alters
The offered AWS services AWS Security Hub, AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer, and Amazon GuardDuty offer you relevant discoveries in your AWS accounts.
They’re simple to set up and can work with many accounts. The very first step is to turn these on. When you notice results, you must also act accordingly.
Your personal incident management policy will define what measures to take. Confirm that you have decided what your mandatory response steps are for each discovery.
Action can be as simple as alerting a professional to intervene, yet as you get better expertise in the field with AWS services, you’ll want to automate your outcome to Security Hub or GuardDuty discoveries.
Conclusion
We hope this article would be useful to better understand security measures in Amazon Cloud Services.
By following these tips and ideas, you will be more secure in running your business on AWS.
That being said, note that executing these steps requires professional skills and amateurs should not attempt it
