Automate data at rest protection

Protecting data at rest is crucial to prevent unauthorized access or mishandling of sensitive information. By employing automated tools, you can ensure consistent application of security controls, reducing human error and enhancing compliance.

Best Practices

Implement Automated Data Encryption Checks

• Use AWS Config to create rules that check for encryption on EBS volumes, S3 buckets, and RDS instances to ensure compliance with data-at-rest security requirements.
• Set up AWS Security Hub to aggregate findings from multiple AWS services and provide a comprehensive view of your security posture, focusing on data encryption.
• Schedule regular audits using AWS Lambda functions to check for any non-compliant resources and send alerts when encryption is not enabled, ensuring continuous enforcement.

Leverage Infrastructure as Code for Compliance

• Utilize AWS CloudFormation or Terraform to provision resources with encryption settings as part of the infrastructure deployment process, ensuring compliance from the start.
• Implement pre-deployment checks and CI/CD pipeline integrations that validate configurations to prevent non-compliant resources from being deployed.
• Maintain version control over your infrastructure templates so that any changes are documented and can be audited over time.

Monitor and Report on Data Protection Status

• Set up dashboards using AWS CloudWatch to monitor the status of encryption across your resources, enabling real-time visibility into data protection.
• Create periodic reports that summarize data encryption compliance, highlighting any findings or areas for improvement, so that teams are aware of their security posture.
• Consider integrating third-party security tools that can enhance your monitoring capabilities and provide additional insights into data protection compliance.

Questions to ask your team

• Do you have automated tools in place to continuously monitor the encryption status of your data storage?
• How frequently are your AWS Config Rules reviewed and updated to ensure compliance with data at rest encryption policies?
• What processes do you have to remediate any non-compliant storage resources identified by AWS Security Hub?
• Can you provide examples of how automation has improved your data protection measures?
• Are your automated tools integrated with incident response processes in case non-compliance is detected?

Who should be doing this?

Cloud Security Engineer

• Implement automated tools for data at rest protection.
• Configure AWS Config Rules to ensure EBS volume encryption.
• Maintain and update automated checks in AWS Security Hub.
• Monitor compliance with data protection regulations and standards.
• Respond to alerts regarding data at rest control violations.

DevOps Engineer

• Integrate data protection automation into CI/CD pipelines.
• Collaborate with the security team to ensure compliance is maintained.
• Deploy infrastructure tools that enforce encryption on storage resources.
• Assist in troubleshooting issues related to data at rest protection.

Compliance Officer

• Evaluate and ensure that automated tools meet compliance standards.
• Review reports from AWS Security Hub regarding data protection controls.
• Conduct regular audits of encryption practices for data at rest.
• Provide training to staff on data handling and protection policies.

What evidence shows this is happening in your organization?

• Data Encryption Policy Template: A comprehensive policy document outlining the requirements for encrypting data at rest across the organization, including guidelines for key management and compliance.
• AWS Config Rules Validation Report: A regular report generated from AWS Config that details the compliance status of EBS volumes, ensuring that they are encrypted as per the organization’s data protection strategy.
• Automated Data Protection Dashboard: A real-time dashboard that displays the status of data at rest protection measures, including metrics on encryption compliance and alerts for any non-compliant resources.
• Data Security Checklist: A checklist for auditing data at rest controls, including steps to verify encryption of storage resources, monitoring configurations, and planned remediation actions.
• Security Automation Playbook: A playbook detailing the procedures for setting up automated checks using AWS tools like AWS Config and Security Hub to validate encryption and other data protection measures.

Cloud Services

AWS

• AWS Config: Allows you to create rules that can check the compliance of your AWS resources, such as ensuring that EBS volumes are encrypted.
• AWS Security Hub: Provides a comprehensive view of security alerts and security posture across your AWS accounts, and verifies controls through automated checks, including data at rest encryption.
• Amazon S3: Provides options for server-side encryption for data at rest, ensuring that data is encrypted when stored.

Azure

• Azure Policy: Enables you to create, assign, and manage policies that enforce specific rules for data at rest, such as requiring encryption for Azure storage accounts.
• Azure Security Center: Provides unified security management and advanced cloud security posture management, which includes monitoring and enforcing data encryption at rest.
• Azure Blob Storage: Supports encryption for data at rest using Azure Storage Service Encryption, ensuring that data is automatically encrypted before being written to disk.

Google Cloud Platform

• Google Cloud Asset Inventory: Provides inventory of cloud resources and can be used to verify whether encryption policies are being followed across services including data at rest.
• Google Cloud Security Command Center: Helps to identify vulnerabilities and manage the security posture of resources, including checking for data protection features like encryption at rest.
• Google Cloud Storage: Automatically encrypts data at rest using Google-managed encryption keys, and provides tools to manage and audit encryption settings.

Question: How do you protect your data at rest?
Pillar: Security (Code: SEC)