AWS completes the second GDV community audit with participant insurers in Germany

We’re excited to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has completed its second GDV (German Insurance Association) community audit with 36 members from the Germany insurance industry participating, corresponding to over 63% coverage of the German market in terms of insurance premiums. Community audits are an efficient method to provide additional assurance to a group of customers on security of the cloud as described in the AWS Shared Responsibility Model in addition to AWS Compliance Programs (for example, Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5)) and resources that are provided to customers through AWS Artifact.

At AWS, security is the highest priority. As customers embrace the scalability and flexibility of AWS, we’re helping them evolve security and compliance into key business enablers. We’re obsessed with earning and maintaining customer trust and providing our financial services customers and their regulatory bodies with assurance that AWS has the necessary controls in place to help protect their most sensitive material and regulated workloads.

With the increasing digitalization of the financial industry and the importance of cloud computing as a key enabling technology for digitalization, the financial services industry is experiencing greater regulatory scrutiny. Our engagement with GDV members is an example of how AWS supports customers’ risk management and regulatory efforts. For the second time, this pooled audit meticulously assessed the AWS controls that we use to help protect customers’ data and material workloads, while satisfying strict regulatory obligations.

GDV is the association of private insurers in Germany, representing around 470 members in the industry and a key player within German and European financial services industries. GDV’s members participating in this community audit have reached out to AWS to exercise their audit rights according to the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), BaFin requirements, and EIOPA’s Guidelines on Outsourcing to Cloud Service Providers. For this cycle, the audit was performed by a single external audit service provider on behalf of 36 participant members within the German insurance industry.

The scope of the audit has been defined with reference to the BSI’s (Federal Office for Information Security) C5 framework, including key domains and control areas, in addition to AWS services (such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and the AWS Region relevant to participant members—Europe (Frankfurt) Region (eu-central-1).

This phase started after an initial discussion in Berlin, Germany, and used a remote approach, using videoconferencing and a secure audit portal for the inspection of evidence. Auditors assessed AWS policies, procedures, controls using evidence, deep-dive subject matter expert (SME) sessions, and follow-up questions to clarify provided evidence.

The audit has been executed and completed according to the mutually agreed engagement set up between AWS, participant members, and external auditors during which participating members exercised their audit rights in line with contractual conditions. After AWS reviews to confirm factual accuracy of the contents, auditors finalized the audit report. The results of the GDV community audit are only available to the participaing members and their regulators. The audit provides GDV members with assurance regarding the AWS controls environment, enabling members to work to remove compliance blockers, accelerate their adoption of AWS services, and obtain confidence and trust in the security controls of AWS.

From the perspective of the participating insurance companies, the second joint audit at AWS was seen as efficient and beneficial, because it reduced individual audit burdens while delivering reliable assurance results. At the same time, extensive planning and coordination required a substantial effort. Coordination with GDV and engaging with the DCSO Deutsche Cybersicherheitsorganisation GmbH (DCSO) as a professional external audit service provider helped streamline communication with AWS and ensured a consistent approach across all participants. The cooperation between the GDV insurers, the DCSO auditors, and AWS was professional and constructive throughout the process. For the first time, two representatives from insurance companies were present at the interviews, thereby gaining an even better impression of the quality of the audit.

To learn more about our compliance and security programs, see AWS Compliance Programs. As always, we value your feedback and questions; reach out to the AWS Compliance team through the Contact Us page.

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