AWS Security Blog
AWS Releases Preview of SMS MFA for IAM Users
Today, AWS introduced the preview of Short Message Service (SMS) support for multi-factor authentication (MFA), making it easier for you to implement a security best practice. Until now, you could enable MFA for AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) users only with hardware or virtual MFA tokens, but this new feature enables you to use […]
How to Protect the Integrity of Your Encrypted Data by Using AWS Key Management Service and EncryptionContext
One of the most important and critical concepts in AWS Key Management Service (KMS) for advanced and secure data usage is EncryptionContext. Using EncryptionContext properly can help significantly improve the security of your applications. In this blog post, I will show the importance of EncryptionContext and will provide a simple example showing how you can […]
Test Resource-Level Permissions Using the IAM Policy Simulator
To make it easier for you to test, verify, and understand resource-level permissions in your account, the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy simulator will now automatically provide a list of resources and parameters required for each AWS action. These enhancements provide you with more accurate simulation results and help ensure that your policies […]
Verify Resource-Based Permissions Using the IAM Policy Simulator
Today, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) made it easier to help you verify your permissions by adding support for resource-based policies in the IAM policy simulator. This extends the capabilities of the IAM policy simulator console and APIs to help you understand, test, and validate how your resource-based policies and IAM policies work together […]
How to Configure Security Settings in Amazon WorkDocs
Amazon WorkDocs (formerly Amazon Zocalo) is a fully managed, secure enterprise storage and sharing service that incorporates feedback capabilities to improve user productivity. You can comment on files, send them to others for feedback, and upload new versions without having to resort to emailing multiple versions of files as attachments. WorkDocs includes security features such […]
AWS Obtains ISO 27018 Privacy Certification
I am pleased to announce that AWS has successfully completed a new assessment, ISO/IEC 27018:2014, a code of practice regarding the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in the cloud and our adherence to the commitments we make to our customers with regard to their content. This privacy code of practice is now an integral […]
How to Help Lock Down a User’s Amazon EC2 Capabilities to a Single VPC
As a cloud support engineer, I am frequently asked this question: “How can I lock down my user’s Amazon EC2 access to a single VPC?” This blog post will answer the question and explain how you can help control this level of access through the use of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and […]
How to create a policy that provides selective access to sensitive Amazon S3 buckets
October 12, 2023: This blog is out of date. Please refer to this post instead: How to restrict Amazon S3 bucket access to a specific IAM role When it comes to securing access to your Amazon S3 buckets, AWS provides various options. You can utilize access control lists (ACLs), AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) […]
Need NIST Compliance in the AWS Cloud? AWS Compliance Has You Covered: NIST 800-171
AWS’s industry-leading security strength benefits you in many ways, one of which is by using a platform that is audited extensively by independent third-party assessors. At times, these audits confirm we can meet new requirements, even as they are issued, and this is the case for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines 800-171, […]
How to Help Prepare for DDoS Attacks by Reducing Your Attack Surface
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are sometimes used by malicious actors in an attempt to flood a network, system, or application with more traffic, connections, or requests than it can handle. Not surprisingly, customers often ask us how we can help them protect their applications against these types of attacks. To help you optimize […]





