Who should use Control Tower?
Control Tower is particularly beneficial for:
- Highly regulated industries: Companies in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government can benefit significantly from Control Tower’s robust compliance features. The pre-configured guardrails and the ability to create custom rules facilitate adherence to industry-specific regulations.
- Large enterprises: For corporations with complex AWS architectures across multiple accounts and regions, Control Tower’s centralized governance and multi-account management simplify compliance and security oversight. This is especially useful for managing large, distributed teams and resources.
- Startups and SMBs: Smaller businesses often lack the resources for a dedicated security and compliance team. Control Tower’s automated guardrails and best practices templates offer a low-maintenance, secure, and scalable environment, allowing startups to focus more on growth and less on governance.
- Managed service provider: Those offering AWS services to multiple clients can use Control Tower as a centralized platform for managing multiple accounts. Its automation capabilities can enhance the value of MSP offerings by ensuring consistent governance across client accounts.
Best practices for security governance and compliance
In the ever-changing landscape of cybersecurity, effective governance and compliance are not just checkboxes to tick but are integral to a robust security posture. While AWS provides a suite of tools designed to assist with governance and compliance, the onus is on organizations to implement these tools wisely. Here are some best practices to consider:
- Implement the principle of least privilege: Limit permissions to the bare minimum required for users to complete their tasks. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access or accidental misconfigurations. IAM and SCPs are excellent tools for this.
- Implement segregation of duties (SoD): Consider implementing SoD to minimize the risk associated with malicious or erroneous activities against sensitive resources. Divide tasks and privileges among multiple people or systems.
- Regular audits and reviews: Periodic audits are essential for maintaining a secure and compliant environment. Use AWS Audit Manager and Config to automate the collection of audit evidence and continuously monitor your environment.
- Use tagging strategically: Implement a consistent tagging strategy across all AWS resources. Tags can be used for cost allocation, compliance tracking, and security monitoring.
- Centralize logging and monitoring: Centralize all logs in a secure, immutable storage account. Control Tower’s Log Archive account can serve this purpose. Ensure that logs are encrypted and access is restricted to authorized personnel only.
- Automated remediation: Automate the remediation of non-compliant resources using Config’s auto-remediation features or custom Lambda functions. This not only saves time but also reduces the window of exposure.
- Compliance dashboards: Use Security Hub or third-party solutions to create compliance dashboards that provide real-time insights into your compliance status.
- Third-party tools: Consider integrating third-party security solutions that offer additional capabilities. However, ensure that these tools comply with your organization’s security policies and are compatible with AWS services.
- Keep abreast of regulatory changes: Laws and regulations are continually evolving. Make sure your governance and compliance strategies adapt to these changes. AWS Artifact and AWS Audit Manager are useful services for accessing compliance reports that can help you stay updated.
By adhering to these best practices, organizations can build a resilient, secure, and compliant AWS environment. These practices are not static but should evolve with your organization and the broader cybersecurity landscape. Therefore, continuous improvement and adaptation are key to maintaining robust security governance and compliance. Moving from governance and compliance, let’s focus on the AWS services dedicated to the secure handling of secrets.