10 Common AWS Security Blunders! How to Avoid Them?

10-Common-AWS-Security-Blunders-How-to-Avoid-Them

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) comes under the most trusted cloud computing services. Both start-ups and big enterprises widely use AWS.

AWS offers various services like Networking, databases, analytics, management, computing, deployment and security.

Various common AWS mistakes made by organisations are listed below:

#1. Manual Management of AWS Infrastructure:

Sometimes developers set up AWS using the web-based management console, to manually produce the resources.

As the actions are not reproducible here, if any damage persists, it becomes very difficult to trace them. It can also affect pre-existing Data.

To avoid this, AWS CloudFormation is the best alternative here. AWS Cloud Formation contains all the essential set of tools to manage the infrastructure automatically.

#2. Selecting Oversized Instances:

Instances are the major resources we are getting in AWS. It is a basic need to run our system. AWS offers a variety of instances based on size.

One needs to be clear about the quantity and size of the instances, as one also needs to keep a track on each AWS instance. 

Oversized instances can cost you too much money. To avoid this, one needs to be specific about the choices as per their requirement.

#3. Leaving Instances Running Idle:

AWS has an amazing advantage. It can choose and supply instances according to the operational need of business. But the consequence of this facility is, sometimes users lose track of their instances.

They forget to turn them off, confusing to figure out the process and spiralling cost. To avoid this, one needs to be careful while using various instances.

#4. Excessive EBS Snapshots:

An EBS snapshot in AWS services plays a major role in the recovery process on system failures. It is a kind of backup which restores data on the system.

The issue arises when too many snapshots have been taken. As this increases the unnecessary storage costs resulting in higher bills.

To avoid them, snapshots retention strategy using Amazon S3 lifecycle rules can be beneficial.

#5. Excessive EBS Volumes:

In any cloud-based service, heaping up old or unused resources can be harmful to the management of AWS infrastructure.

For example, EBS volumes are charged as per the use. However, the unused volumes can be the reason behind increment in bills, like the performance-based issues in the system.

To avoid this, keep the calculated required volumes as per the future need.

#6. Providing Inessential Privileges:

Often, many employees give admin rights. It can be dangerous in terms of AWS security privacy. User privileges should check regularly.

They ensure the integrity of the system. It is advisable to avoid providing unnecessary controlling access.

To avoid this, AWS has a service called AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).

It manages every single access to AWS accounts, eventually reducing security risks.

  • Not Maintaining the Logs-

Often, legible ignored, but whatever application has used, logging of all the actions performed is necessary.

This habit can be the saviour for system crashes and tracking the systems metrics.

To avoid this, enabling AWS CloudTrail can play a major in maintaining logs. It can also track the API calls from the console.

#8. Security Issues due to Misconfiguration:

Sometimes AWS has to deal with various security flaws due to Misconfiguration of AWS in system infrastructure. It leaves various loopholes behind, which results in various security threats.

To avoid this, it is essential to regularly change the user credentials and passwords, including enabling two-factor authentication.

#9. Ignoring Encryption:

Often, it has noticed that many enterprises do not enable encryption in their AWS Infrastructure.

Encryption is very important to create Relational Database Service (RDS), Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and to protect data in S3. Having misconfigured encryption is the same as having no encryption.

A properly configured encryption is necessary to avoid system security threats.

#10. Ignoring the future Outage issues:

AWS has a feature called AWS Availability Zones; it simply distributes the user’s workload across various data centres. It lowers the risk of an outage.

So, to avoid an outage, one must think about spreading their workload within a given region via AWS Availability Zone.

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