Now Available: A New AWS Quick Start Reference Deployment for CJIS

As part of the AWS Compliance Quick Start program, AWS has published a new Quick Start reference deployment for customers who need to align with Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy 5.6 and process Criminal Justice Information (CJI) in accordance with this policy. The new Quick Start is AWS Enterprise Accelerator – Compliance: CJIS, and it makes it easier for you to address the list of supported controls you will find in the security controls matrix that accompanies the Quick Start.

As all AWS Quick Starts do, this Quick Start helps you automate the building of a recommended architecture that, when deployed as a package, provides a baseline AWS configuration. The Quick Start uses sets of nested AWS CloudFormation templates and user data scripts to create an example environment with a two-VPC, multi-tiered web service.

The new Quick Start also includes:

• AWS Identity and Access Management resources – Policies, groups, roles, and instance profiles.
• Amazon S3 buckets – Encrypted web content, logging, and backup.
• A bastion host for troubleshooting and administration.
• An encrypted Amazon Relational Database Service database instance running in multiple Availability Zones.
• A configuration that makes use of AWS CloudTrail, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS Config Rules to log, monitor, and alert.

The recommended architecture built by the Quick Start supports a wide variety of AWS best practices (all of which are detailed in the Quick Start), including the use of multiple Availability Zones, isolation using public and private subnets, load balancing, and Auto Scaling.

The Quick Start package also includes a deployment guide with detailed instructions and a security controls matrix that describes how the deployment addresses CJIS Security Policy 5.6 controls. You should have your IT security assessors and risk decision makers review the security controls matrix so that they can understand the extent of the implementation of the controls within the architecture. The matrix also identifies the specific resources in the CloudFormation templates that affect each control, and contains cross-references to the CJIS Security Policy 5.6 security controls.

If you have questions about this new Quick Start, contact the AWS Compliance Quick Start team. For more information about the AWS CJIS program, see CJIS Compliance.

– Emil