Amazon Web Services: Basic Security Concepts: AWS Security and Shared Responsibility

Name: Amazon Web Services: Basic Security Concepts: AWS Security and Shared Responsibility
Author: Demetria Crawford

Learn the AWS and customer responsibilities under the AWS shared responsibility model.

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Hello, my name is Demetria Crawford, and in this lesson we will review the AWS Shared Responsibility Model. The Shared Responsibility Model is a cloud security framework that dictates the security obligations of a cloud computing provider and its customers to ensure accountability. The AWS Shared Responsibility Model consists of two layers, customer responsibilities, and AWS responsibilities. The intentions of the model are to minimize the lack of clarity. As many cloud customers do not understand the dividing lines of what they're accountable for in the cloud. Some cloud customers may have a false sense of security due to the belief that all cloud security is handled by the cloud providers. In essence, the AWS Shared Responsibility Model provides a defined scope for both parties. Now, there are three types of responsibilities in the Shared Responsibility Model. There's the Inherited Controls, which are controls that a customer fully inherits from AWS. Then there's Shared Controls, which are controls shared by AWS and its customers, but in a separate context. For example, Patch Management. AWS is responsible for patching and maintaining the infrastructure. However, customers are responsible for patching the operating systems and applications for the instances that they manage in the cloud, such as EC2s. Finally, there's Customer-specific Controls. These are controls that are solely the responsibility of the customer, based on the applications that they're running within the AWS cloud. From the image, we can see the high-level customer responsibilities under the Shared Responsibility Model, in blue, and the AWS responsibilities in orange. We will review these in more details in the next lesson. For now, we want to identify the clear lines of responsibilities between AWS and its customers. AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud. AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all the services offered in the AWS cloud. This infrastructure is composed of the hardware, software, networking, and data centers that run the AWS cloud services. AWS customers are responsible for the security in the cloud. Customer responsibility will be determined by the AWS cloud services selected by the customer. Each service provided has its own level of security responsibility. For example, infrastructure as a service and platform as a service, require more security ownership by the customer than a software as a service, which requires very little from the customer at all. It's managed more by the cloud provider. Let's take a look at the listing of shared responsibilities from the AWS docs. So if we were to type in "shared responsibility" in the AWS documentation, one of the things you'll notice that you'll start seeing shared responsibility for specific services that you can run in AWS. Let's take a look at the Shared Responsibility Model for Lambda. If you'll notice, this particular image looks different than the first image we had for the AWS Shared Responsibility Model. That's because there's a different requirement for this service. AWS Lambda is a serverless service that allows you to create specific actions that you want computation to happen for, but it has to be initiated based off of some type of circumstance. Well with that, what the customer is responsible for, if you notice there are only four things here, the Identity and Access Management, Resource Configuration, and actually there are three things, Customer Function and Code Libraries. Whereas for AWS, there are several more responsibilities that are listed here. It is recommended that for each service that you're running, that you identify what the shared responsibilities are for that specific service. In this lesson, we defined the AWS Shared Responsibility Model. Stay tuned for the next lesson where I will discuss the customer responsibilities under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Demetria Crawford 3 Lessons · 13m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

AWS provides access to a cloud security framework which dictates the security obligations of AWS and its customers to ensure accountability. This course provides a review of the AWS shared responsibility model to provide a clear understanding of each party’s security responsibilities. Three types of controls are covered, inherited, shared, and customer specific. In these lessons you will learn the AWS shared responsibility model and how to identify line of responsibility for specific AWS services.

What You'll Learn

Identify the elements of the AWS shared responsibility model
Describe AWS customer security responsibilities
Describe AWS's own security responsibilities
Distinguish between inherited, shared, and customer-specific controls
Determine the line of responsibility for specific AWS services

Key Takeaways

AWS provides a cloud security framework that dictates the security obligations of both AWS and its customers to ensure accountability.
The course reviews the AWS shared responsibility model to clarify each party's security responsibilities.
Three types of controls are covered: inherited, shared, and customer-specific.
Learners practice identifying the line of responsibility for specific AWS services.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this course cover?

It provides a review of the AWS shared responsibility model to give a clear understanding of each party's security responsibilities, covering three types of controls: inherited, shared, and customer-specific.

What will I be able to do after taking this course?

You will be able to identify the elements of the shared responsibility model, describe AWS customer security responsibilities, describe AWS responsibilities, and identify the line of responsibility for specific AWS services.

What topics or lessons are included?

The course includes three lessons: The Shared Responsibility Model, Customer Responsibilities, and AWS Responsibilities.

What skills does this course relate to?

It relates to skills including Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Web Services, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS SDK, Security Context, and AWS Certified Security Specialty.