Almost one-third of the businesses that operate on the cloud use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their platform. As more and more enterprises save terabytes of their data on the cloud, it becomes imperative to protect it. Sometimes simple tools like adherence to data privacy regulations, monitoring and preventing malicious activities can go long to keep your data safe.
Apart from that, these ten tools can be your armor in the AWS cloud environment.
1. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM):
The AWS identity and access management service allows you to secure management and access to an AWS cloud resource. Through IAM, companies can set admin rules for users and modulate access permissions to stored resources. Therefore, it enables condition-based access that registers IP addresses, login times, IP, and the authentication users choose.
Although it may sound tricky, the process is pretty seamless as you can easily use it to integrate with your employee directory for a hassle-free user experience. The multi-factor authentication only makes identity management more secure.
Moreover, IAM provides enough flexibility for you to tweak the identity management process as and when desired. IAM is indeed a perfect access management system to enhance access to AWS data. Alternatively, you can also get help from an AWS premier partner to take your security process to the highest industry standards.
2. Amazon Cognito:
With changing forces in the market, business trends have evolved drastically. Sometimes employees need data access and information even on the go. Therefore, logging through phones, I-pad and laptops is unavoidable yet complicated from the security point of view. Such inclusivity, however, is not beyond reach for companies with advanced options like Amazon Amazon Cognito.
It is a tool that enables organizations to add exclusive user sign-ups, sign-ins and allow access control to use on their mobile and web applications.
Moreover, you can also go in for IT support social media logins or enterprise logins with established standards like SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect. Amazon Cognito can simplify the login process and prevent unauthorized access to the cloud even when used in public places.
3. AWS IoT Device Defender:
It is yet another tool that protects the data or information shared among different IoT devices on the cloud. AWS IoT continuously scrutinizes and audits the IoT settings that ensure the best security standard. Like the IAM, this tool also checks for authorization, device identity and encrypts device data. If there are any anomalies or data breaches, it immediately sends alerts and suggestions from built-in mitigation actions.
4. AWS CloudTrail:
Recording user activities on the AWS cloud system has never been more accessible. AWS CloudTrail is a comprehensive tool that helps track usage. It generates audit reports detailing the login frequency and user’s IP addresses.
CloudTrail tools are quite a utility for AWS users as they can help detect any unauthorized API activity. It also stores detailed reports on servers like Amazon S3 and helps comprehend the primary cause of unauthorized actions. These data audit report also complies with data privacy laws that enable companies to scrutinize any suspicious data leakages.
5. AWS Network Security:
It is indeed a one-stop security solution for your entire cloud network on AWS. AWS network security is a firewall tool that allows you to state firewall protection policies throughout your Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs). You can set security systems using fine-grained rules engines based on IP protocols, pattern matching, or domain. Additionally, it allows exclusive web filtering to stop traffic flow into any bad or unsecured URLs. The best part about this tool is its pricing. It provides flexibility depending on the number of firewalls you implement and the total volume of traffic inspected.
6. Amazon Macie:
It is a tool that predominantly utilizes machine learning and pattern recognition to protect and identify sensitive data. Amazon Macie helps categorize data into buckets stored in Amazon S3, including personal identity information, publicly shared data, and unencrypted data. If any of these buckets is not protected or is at risk, it alerts users and suggests increasing protection on specific buckets.
7. CloudEndure Disaster Recovery
It is an intelligent application tool to protect your data from catastrophic loss due to data center failure or cyber-attack. It primarily minimizes IT downtime and enables comprehensive and fast recovery of stored data in the cloud. The created backup can include enterprise information such as SAP and databases such as SQL. CloudEndure can also replicate data from various machines into a low-cost sector in your AWS cloud within a few minutes.
8. AWS Key Management Service (KMS):
If you want to secure keys to your data, then AWS key management System is your answer. It provides a centralized set of master keys to your encrypted data on the cloud and permits you to enforce your company-specific data policies.
One of the critical features of KMS is that it allows APIs to integrate the key management to your applications and allows digital signatures. Unlike other apps is not limited to the cloud and has a wide application.
If you are keen on knowing who accessed your data and the time of access, you can use it to send all the access records to CloudTrail.
9. AWS Cloud HSM:
The AWS Cloud Hardware Security Module is a tool to encrypt your cloud data externally on your premises, such as your company’s firewall. It acts as an open encryption tool that you can use to blend with other business standards like JCE, PKCS, and CNS libraries. It also provides you the option to store your encryption keys in secured hardware.
10. AWS Audit Manager:
It is a tool that primarily reduces infrastructure and data audit efforts in an organization. It can help scan your AWS cloud data and assess whether your data policies are effectively operating. It also checks if they comply with the data privacy regulations. You can also use this tool to create an audit report on data usage so that various stakeholders can review policies while auditing.
Conclusion:
The cloud environment is one of the safest places to secure your data. The above tools only add another security layer to safeguard your data and record access. It ensures that your data remains protected against malicious usage and adherence to privacy laws to mitigate IT disasters.
