Landing Zone Accelerator Independent Assessment Report for C5:2020 now available on AWS Artifact

Organizations operating in Germany and across Europe increasingly need to demonstrate cloud security compliance under the Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5:2020), published by Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Last year, we introduced Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS support for digital sovereignty and today we’re announcing the availability of a new independent assessment report available on AWS Artifact which evaluates how the Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) on AWS solution provides enhanced coverage for C5:2020 requirements by implementing nearly 200 native security controls. LZA is available using a standard multi-account configuration or as a container-based deployment option in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, enabling customers with data residency requirements to use the same security configuration baseline.

How this accelerates your compliance journey

Security and compliance are a shared responsibility. LZA takes on part of this responsibility by defining a security architecture baseline and automatically provisioning your AWS environment that scales as your organization grows. Where AWS already provides C5 Type 2 attestation reports for “security of the cloud”, the LZA assessment report offers an independent opinion of how the security baseline LZA provisions aligns with C5:2020 criteria for “security in the cloud”. Instead of starting from scratch, you can deploy with LZA, evaluate the scope of coverage from the report, and use the LZA Compliance Workbook to build on and customize for your organization’s unique use case. These resources can help you reduce time in architecture design, evidence collection, and preparation for C5:2020 assessments. The free LZA Compliance Workbook available on AWS Artifact and open source Universal Configuration GitHub repository are also excellent sources to add to a knowledge base, enabling you to create a security compliance chat agent with Bedrock to assist your governance or assurance teams.

What’s in the report

AWS Partner Schellman, an independent third-party assessor, evaluated the LZA Universal Configuration architecture and security control baseline, which maps to C5:2020 controls in the LZA Compliance Workbook, to determine how the LZA infrastructure aligns to C5:2020 technical requirements. The report concluded that LZA can help implement 325 security controls in aggregate, aligning to technical requirements from eight C5:2020 control areas. It also describes the LZA architecture design, security best practices, and scoping considerations for C5:2020 assessments. This is the first installation of the independent C5 report for LZA, which will be updated in 2027 to evaluate coverage for the pending C5:2026 revision.

In addition to the LZA C5:2020 report, you can also find the LZA Compliance Workbook available on AWS Artifact. It maps C5:2020 requirement identifiers to security implementation statements, giving you a starting point from which you can customize and enhance your compliance documentation for your unique workloads or operational practices after deploying LZA.

Getting started with LZA for C5

1. Sign in to your AWS account first and then download the LZA C5:2020 Independent Assessment Report and LZA Compliance Workbook from AWS Artifact.
2. Visit the LZA Universal Configuration GitHub repository to review and download the latest configuration baseline. Also, see guidance for European Sovereign Cloud LZA deployments.
3. The LZA Implementation Guide walks you through deployment steps, use cases, and pre-deployment considerations.

To learn more, submit a question to a LZA team member or contact your AWS account representative.

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