AWS Public Sector Blog
Author: Ashneet Gujral
Ashneet Gujral is a solutions architect for Amazon Web Services (AWS). He works with the ATO on AWS program to help customers achieve their compliance certifications quickly by exploring new technologies and secure them to meet the needs of the ever-changing security landscape. He is always up to new challenges and open to exploring any idea, regardless of how small or big they are.
Enabling FIPS mode in Amazon Linux 2
Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 specifies the security requirements for cryptographic modules that protect sensitive information. It is the current United States and Canadian government standard, and is applicable to systems that are required to be compliant with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) or Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). In this blog, we demonstrate how to enable FIPS mode in Amazon Linux 2 and verify that unauthorized cryptographic functions are not being used in OpenSSL or the OpenSSH server.