Access Control

Contents

Key Management Service (KMS)
7
What is KMS?
PREVIEW8m 25s
8
Components of KMS
PREVIEW11m 6s
AWS Web Application Firewall
AWS Shield
Start course
Difficulty
Beginner
Duration
5h 2m
Students
648
Ratings
4.5/5
starstarstarstarstar-half
Description

This course looks at the key Security services within AWS relevant to the SysOps Administrator - Associate exam. The core to security is Identity & Access Management, commonly referred to as IAM. This service manages identities and their permissions that are able to access your AWS resources and so understanding how this service works and what you can do with it will help you to maintain a secure AWS environment.  In addition to IAM, this course covers a range of other security services covering encryption and access control

Learning Objectives

  • Learn about identity and access management on AWS including users, groups & roles, IAM policies, MFA, and cross-account access
  • Learn the fundamentals of AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) including what it is, when to use it, how it works, and why use it
  • Learn how to manage data protection through encryption services such as the Key Management Service (KMS) and CloudHSM
  • Learn how to secure your AWS accounts using AWS Organizations
  • Understand how to configure and monitor AWS WAF, Firewall Manager, and Shield
  • Learn the fundamentals of access control via federation using AWS Cognito and AWS SSO
Transcript

Hello and welcome to this lecture where I want to highlight how you can access AWS CloudHSM.  

More often than not in AWS, access to resources can be controlled by IAM controls, however, CloudHSM is slightly different.  Instead of using IAM users, the service has its own users and security held on the HSMs themselves utilizing a role-based access control method.  Do bear in mind, however, you will still need permissions from within IAM to use the CloudHSM service.   As you might expect, there are different types of users with different levels of controls as to what actions they can perform on the module.  So let’s take a look.  

The types of users available on the HSM are as follows:

  • Precrypto Office (PRECO).
  • Crypto Office (CO).
  • Crypto User (CU).
  • Appliance User (AU).

After you have created your HSM cluster, the first HSM you connect to will be provisioned with the Precrypto Office (PRECO) user with a default username and password.  This is a temporary user with temporary credentials of read-only access to the cluster.  Using the PRECO user you must activate your cluster. As a part of the activation process of your cluster you will need to change the PRECO password, and by doing so your PRECO user will then become the Crypto Office (CO) user.  

The Crypto Office (CO) user contains a more advanced permission set than that of the PRECO user.  The CO has the ability to carry out user management tasks, such as the creation and deletion of users, in addition to changing users' passwords.  It can also perform some administrative level operations as well, including:

  • The ability to zeroise data on the HSM, which will delete certificated, keys and any other data on the HSM.
  • Obtain HSM details such as the different HSM IP address in the cluster, the models, and serial numbers.
  • View and determine the synchronization status across your cluster.

A Crypto User (CU) is used predominantly to perform the cryptographic operations and key management functions with your CloudHSM cluster, these include: 

  • Create, delete, import/export, and share cryptographic keys.
  • Perform encryption and decryption, plus signing and verifying.

Also, much like the CO, CUs are also able to zeroise data and basic cluster information such as IP address and serial number and retrieve cluster synchronization status.

The Appliance User (AU) performs cloning and synchronization across your cluster and it exists on all HSMs.  The CloudHSM calls upon the AU to ensure the synchronization of your HSMs within your cluster is maintained.  

Here is a summary of the different user types used on the HSMs. (Image source: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cloudhsm/latest/userguide/manage-hsm-users.html#user-permissions-table)

The hardware security modules are designed with physical tamper detection and response processes.  This means that if the HSM detected any kind of physical breach or tampering of the device, it would begin key deletion across the hardware. 

In addition to this, the HSMs are also designed with protection against brute force login attacks.  This means that if you were to incorrectly enter the wrong passwords for a Crypto User, then that HSM would lock out that user, and would have to be unlocked by a Crypto Officer.

About the Author
Students
218685
Labs
1
Courses
213
Learning Paths
174

Stuart has been working within the IT industry for two decades covering a huge range of topic areas and technologies, from data center and network infrastructure design, to cloud architecture and implementation.

To date, Stuart has created 150+ courses relating to Cloud reaching over 180,000 students, mostly within the AWS category and with a heavy focus on security and compliance.

Stuart is a member of the AWS Community Builders Program for his contributions towards AWS.

He is AWS certified and accredited in addition to being a published author covering topics across the AWS landscape.

In January 2016 Stuart was awarded ‘Expert of the Year Award 2015’ from Experts Exchange for his knowledge share within cloud services to the community.

Stuart enjoys writing about cloud technologies and you will find many of his articles within our blog pages.