Title
AWS re:Invent 2022 - Protect against ransomware with a Zero Trust architecture (STG208)
Summary
- Nancy Wang, director and general manager for AWS Data Protection Services, and Neha Rangta, head of IAM Automated Reasoning, discuss protecting data environments from ransomware using Zero Trust on AWS.
- They emphasize the evolution of ransomware, targeting confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of data, and the inadequacy of paying ransoms to recover data.
- The talk covers the importance of a comprehensive data protection strategy utilizing Zero Trust architecture, focusing on securing data paths and proving data and business immunity to common attack paths.
- Zero Trust is defined as a combination of identity-centric and network-centric controls that are aware of and augment each other.
- Four steps to protect against ransomware are outlined: knowing where sensitive data lives, protecting it with the right configurations and policies, hardening paths to the data, and maintaining a regular patching strategy.
- AWS services like Amazon Macie, IAM Access Analyzer, AWS Backup, and others are recommended for classifying, tagging, backing up, and securing data.
- A case study involving Amazon Consumer Payments demonstrates how they use provable security to ensure the safety of customer payment data in the cloud.
- The talk concludes with a discussion on making universal statements about the security of infrastructure and data, using AWS services to achieve a Zero Trust architecture and protect against ransomware.
Insights
- The shift from on-premises to cloud environments has changed the nature of ransomware attacks, with actors now exfiltrating data and demanding additional ransoms for non-release.
- Zero Trust architecture is crucial for modern ransomware protection, as it assumes that attackers are already inside the environment and focuses on making it difficult for them to exploit and access core data.
- AWS provides a range of services that support Zero Trust architecture, including identity and network-centric controls that work together to secure data.
- The concept of a "critical zone" is introduced, which is a part of the architecture that stores and transmits critical data. Identifying and securing this zone is key to protecting sensitive information.
- Provable security, which uses mathematical techniques to prove data security, is highlighted as the future of ensuring data protection in the cloud.
- AWS democratizes advanced security features, making them accessible to all customers, allowing them to make universal statements about their security posture.
- The talk emphasizes the importance of backups as the last line of defense against ransomware, with AWS Backup providing a managed solution for comprehensive data protection.
- The session underscores the need for continuous monitoring and auditing of security measures to ensure compliance and the effectiveness of ransomware protection strategies.