How the AWS CloudHSM Eases the Pain of Security Audits

Amazon offers a large selection of security products that help with compliance, privacy and data protection. IAM, intra-VM encryption and a swath of other products help make your users and your auditors breathe easier. There is still the problem of key storage. CloudHSM brings a reliable solution to that problem.

Exactly what is CloudHSM

CloudHSM is a dedicated hardware security appliance in the Amazon cloud that provides security key storage and cryptographic operation to a specific user.

A hardware appliance

Most of Amazon Web Services is based on virtualization. Virtualization allows for a software-only instance of something – like a server, router, or switch – to be created within a larger computing infrastructure. Cloud HSM is not virtualized – it is a standalone piece of hardware that only you have access to.

Specifically, CloudHSM is a Luna SA HSM appliance from Safenet. The Luna SA is Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 and Common Criteria EAL4+ standard compliant.

A storage in the Amazon cloud for your encryption keys

CloudHSM provides a cryptographic partition for the storage of keys related to your AWS infrastructure. For instance, if a particular application requires a key to access a database stores in S3, it can retrieve that key from the hardware appliance.

How does is help with compliance?

Various regulatory agencies have very strict requirements when it comes to encryption.

Separation of concerns

With most AWS systems, Amazon has credentials to the underlying server that could allow an administrator access to the data. Not so with the CloudHSM. Amazon has administrative credentials that would allow them to repurpose the device, but those credentials cannot be used to retrieve the keys on the device. That privilege is only for the client user.

PCI

Simply, put, PCI has remarkably strict key management standards. CloudHSM is one of the list of AWS services validated for the 2013 PCI DSS compliance package. Specifically, just using CloudHSM in your key storage program will meet the requirements for PCI 3.5 and 3.6.

HIPAA

In order to meet the HIPAA requirements for storage of personal medical data, data at rest must be encrypted. This previously required a local storage component for personally identifiable information, significantly slowing any cloud initiative. Adding CloudHSM to the mix allows for data at rest within the Amazon cloud to be safely encrypted and still meet the key storage requirements of HIPAA.

What do I need to know?

There are always a few caveats to any new technology and CloudHSM is no different.

You need to have a VPC

CloudHSM doesn’t work on the open cloud. You’ll need to be using a Virtual Private Cloud to make it all come together. Fortunately a VPC is very easy to set up, and you night already be using one. It is part of the package for a number of AWS suite systems.

It is possible to use CloudHSM with your custom applications

You bet! Many of the AWS applications have capabilities to use keys from CloudHSM. EBS Volume encryption and S# object encryption are two that have the most obvious benefit for custom applications.

CloudHSM helps with security compliance

A reliable hardware appliance, well implemented, will help with your security compliance. Getting CloudHSM configured and integrated requires some effort, but the end result is as secure as your own data center.

Comments (2) -

  • Brent Huston
    Isn't is HIPAA and not HIPPA? Tong

    You said leave a nasty comment.... Smile
  • Bill Sempf
    Got it right in the text, wrong in the header. Fixed. Thanks!
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