AWS Security Blog

Category: Expert (400)

Implement OAuth 2.0 device grant flow by using Amazon Cognito and AWS Lambda

In this blog post, you’ll learn how to implement the OAuth 2.0 device authorization grant flow for Amazon Cognito by using AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. When you implement the OAuth 2.0 authorization framework (RFC 6749) for internet-connected devices with limited input capabilities or that lack a user-friendly browser—such as wearables, smart assistants, video-streaming devices, […]

How to use ACM Private CA for enabling mTLS in AWS App Mesh

Securing east-west traffic in service meshes, such as AWS App Mesh, by using mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS) adds an additional layer of defense beyond perimeter control. mTLS adds bidirectional peer-to-peer authentication on top of the one-way authentication in normal TLS. This is done by adding a client-side certificate during the TLS handshake, through which […]

Create a portable root CA using AWS CloudHSM and ACM Private CA

March 6, 2025: This post was republished to reference the AWS CloudHSM Client SDK 5 and Amazon Linux 2023 AMI, as well as the new AWS CloudHSM documentation and expiration for the root CA. Feb 17, 2025: This blog post references AWS CloudHSM Client SDK 3, which is no longer the recommended version. AWS recommends […]

How to implement SaaS tenant isolation with ABAC and AWS IAM

April 25, 2023: We’ve updated this blog post to include more security learning resources. August 31, 2021: AWS KMS is replacing the term customer master key (CMK) with AWS KMS key and KMS key. The concept has not changed. To prevent breaking changes, AWS KMS is keeping some variations of this term. More info. Multi-tenant […]

How to verify AWS KMS signatures in decoupled architectures at scale

August 31, 2021: AWS KMS is replacing the term customer master key (CMK) with AWS KMS key and KMS key. The concept has not changed. To prevent breaking changes, AWS KMS is keeping some variations of this term. More info. AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) makes it easy to create and manage cryptographic keys […]

How to scale your authorization needs by using attribute-based access control with S3

August 31, 2021: AWS KMS is replacing the term customer master key (CMK) with AWS KMS key and KMS key. The concept has not changed. To prevent breaking changes, AWS KMS is keeping some variations of this term. More info. May 26, 2021: In the section “Secure your tags using an AWS Organizations service control […]

How to protect sensitive data for its entire lifecycle in AWS

April 25, 2023: We’ve updated this blog post to include more security learning resources. Many Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer workflows require ingesting sensitive and regulated data such as Payments Card Industry (PCI) data, personally identifiable information (PII), and protected health information (PHI). In this post, I’ll show you a method designed to protect sensitive […]

Mitigate data leakage through the use of AppStream 2.0 and end-to-end auditing

Customers want to use AWS services to operate on their most sensitive data, but they want to make sure that only the right people have access to that data. Even when the right people are accessing data, customers want to account for what actions those users took while accessing the data. In this post, we […]

How to automate incident response in the AWS Cloud for EC2 instances

One of the security epics core to the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is a focus on incident response and preparedness to address unauthorized activity. Multiple methods exist in Amazon Web Services (AWS) for automating classic incident response techniques, and the AWS Security Incident Response Guide outlines many of these methods. This post demonstrates […]

New IAMCTL tool compares multiple IAM roles and policies

If you have multiple Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts, and you have AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles among those multiple accounts that are supposed to be similar, those roles can deviate over time from your intended baseline due to manual actions performed directly out-of-band called drift. As part of regular compliance checks, you […]