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Compliance

Organizations operating in regulated industries (e.g., finance, healthcare, retail) must align their cloud architecture with compliance requirements such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, FedRAMP, and SOC 2. AWS provides various security, auditing, and governance services to help organizations meet these compliance standards.

✅ Why is Compliance Alignment Important?

✔ Reduces risk of data breaches ✔ Meets legal & industry requirements ✔ Ensures data privacy & security ✔ Facilitates third-party audits & certifications

🔹 AWS Compliance Services & Tools

AWS provides a range of services and best practices to help customers comply with regulatory standards.

AWS Service

Purpose & Compliance Benefit

AWS Security Hub

Centralized security compliance monitoring & continuous checks against best practices (e.g., CIS, PCI DSS).

AWS Config

Tracks AWS resource configurations to ensure compliance with security and governance policies.

AWS Audit Manager

Automates evidence collection for compliance audits.

AWS Control Tower

Simplifies multi-account compliance governance & enforces security guardrails.

AWS Organizations & SCPs

Restricts AWS services and configurations across multiple accounts to enforce security policies.

Amazon Macie

Detects and protects sensitive data such as PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and financial data.

AWS Key Management Service (KMS)

Encrypts sensitive data to meet HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS encryption requirements.

AWS Identity & Access Management (IAM)

Enforces least privilege access controls using IAM policies and role-based access.

AWS CloudTrail

Provides audit logs for compliance reporting and security investigations.

AWS Shield & WAF

Protects against DDoS attacks and web application vulnerabilities.

Amazon GuardDuty

Threat detection for malware, unauthorized access, and security risks.

🔹 SecureCart Compliance Alignment Example

Scenario: SecureCart Needs to Meet PCI DSS and GDPR Compliance

SecureCart, an e-commerce company, must comply with PCI DSS for processing payments and GDPR for protecting customer data.

1️⃣ Secure Payment Processing (PCI DSS)

✅ AWS Services Used: ✔ AWS Key Management Service (KMS) → Encrypts payment transaction data. ✔ AWS Shield Advanced → Protects against DDoS attacks on checkout APIs. ✔ AWS WAF → Blocks SQL injection attacks that could expose credit card details. ✔ Amazon GuardDuty → Detects suspicious login attempts and API requests.

2️⃣ Data Privacy & Protection (GDPR)

✅ AWS Services Used: ✔ Amazon Macie → Automatically detects PII (e.g., names, emails, credit card numbers) in S3. ✔ AWS IAM & Resource Policies → Enforces role-based access to customer data. ✔ AWS Config → Ensures encryption policies are correctly applied to all resources. ✔ AWS CloudTrail → Logs all API calls to track access to personal data.

🔹 Implementing Compliance in AWS

1️⃣ Enforce Compliance with AWS Config & Security Hub

✅ Steps:

  1. Enable AWS Config to track changes to resources.

  2. Use AWS Config Rules to check for:

    • Encrypted S3 Buckets (AWS-S3-Bucket-Encryption-Enabled).

    • IAM Root User MFA Enforcement (IAM-Root-User-MFA-Enabled).

    • Unrestricted Security Groups (restricted-ssh).

  3. Enable AWS Security Hub to continuously check compliance status.

🔹 Why? ✔ Ensures encryption & access control policies are enforced. ✔ Automates compliance checks to prevent configuration drift.

2️⃣ Centralized Compliance Governance with AWS Control Tower

SecureCart uses AWS Control Tower to enforce security guardrails across multiple accounts.

✅ Steps:

  1. Set up AWS Organizations and enable AWS Control Tower.

  2. Define Service Control Policies (SCPs) to:

    • Deny IAM user creation (Enforces IAM Role usage).

    • Restrict S3 public access.

    • Prevent unapproved AWS Regions from being used.

  3. Enable AWS Config and Security Hub for all accounts.

🔹 Why? ✔ Simplifies compliance for multi-account environments. ✔ Enforces organization-wide security best practices.

3️⃣ Secure Data Encryption & Key Management

SecureCart encrypts all customer PII and payment transactions using AWS KMS.

✅ Steps:

  1. Enable S3 default encryption with KMS CMKs.

  2. Enforce IAM permissions to restrict access to encryption keys.

  3. Enable automatic key rotation in AWS KMS.

  4. Use AWS CloudTrail to log decryption events for auditing.

🔹 Why? ✔ Meets PCI DSS & GDPR encryption requirements. ✔ Prevents unauthorized access to sensitive customer data.

4️⃣ Auditing & Compliance Reporting with AWS Audit Manager

SecureCart must provide audit reports for GDPR & PCI DSS compliance.

✅ Steps:

  1. Enable AWS Audit Manager to automate compliance reporting.

  2. Define custom audit frameworks (e.g., GDPR, PCI DSS).

  3. Generate audit-ready reports for regulatory requirements.

🔹 Why? ✔ Reduces manual compliance work. ✔ Provides evidence for security audits.

✅ Summary

Compliance Requirement

AWS Services Used

PCI DSS (Payment Security)

AWS KMS, AWS Shield, WAF, GuardDuty

GDPR (Data Privacy & Access Controls)

Amazon Macie, IAM, AWS Config, CloudTrail

Continuous Compliance Monitoring

AWS Security Hub, AWS Config, Audit Manager

Governance & Multi-Account Compliance

AWS Organizations, AWS Control Tower, SCPs

Data Encryption & Access Management

AWS KMS, IAM, Resource Policies

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