Surviving the Fallout of the Deep Root Leak: Best Practices for AWS

Sekhar Sarukkai is the Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Skyhigh Networks.

The Deep Root Analytics leak that affected 198 million Americans sent shockwaves throughout the world, as the majority of the adult US population had its voter information exposed to the public. Within the context of the increasingly turbulent cybersecurity political landscape, data protection is becoming essential for both the public and private sector alike, yet these leaks seem to be happening more frequently.

The Deep Root security incident, alongside many others before it, only further proves the necessity of proper security practices for frequently used but often-neglected IaaS systems such as AWS. There were essentially no such protections for Deep Root’s data stored in an AWS S3 bucket. Anyone with a simple six-character Amazon subdomain could access it.

Data vulnerability is nothing new to the security industry, but adopting the correct best practices can make any bit of data, no matter how sensitive, secure in AWS. Although Amazon has made significant investments in securing its AWS platform, gaps still exist that hackers could utilize to either gain access to secure information, take an application offline, or erase data entirely.

Amazon has developed sophisticated tools, such as AWS shield, for DDoS attacks, yet a larger, more coordinated effort could overwhelm the system. Even with such protections, many data breaches are caused by insiders, whether that is due to negligence or malicious intent. In fact, enterprises face nearly 11 insider threats per month on average, making internal and external security essential to safeguarding sensitive data.

Another important AWS vulnerability is improper configuration. Within the shared responsibility model, Amazon monitors AWS infrastructure and platform security, as well as responds to incidents of fraud and abuse. Since customers often require custom applications, they are responsible for configuring and managing the services themselves, notably EC2, VPC, and Amazon S3. This includes installing updates and security patches, otherwise vulnerabilities may arise if left unattended.

Best Practices for a More Secure AWS

Applying the best practices for AWS services and infrastructure is only a small part of the puzzle, as custom applications deployed in AWS also require similar safety precautions. Without proper security configurations, the Deep Root leak may become one of many data breaches that impacts hundreds of millions of people. However, by employing security best practices, organizations can withstand even the most sophisticated threats, sheltering their most valuable data.

Opinions expressed in the article above do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Data Center Knowledge and Penton.

Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library.