(spot303) security operations at massive scale

© 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

George Stathakopoulos, VP Amazon.com, Information Security

Stephen Schmidt, VP AWS Security Engineering & CISO

October 2015

SPT303

Security Operations

at a Massive Scale

Brothers raised in the same household

With different viewpoints:

• George – responsible for security of Amazon.com

• Steve – responsible for security of AWS

Two guys moving toward the same goal

What we share

• Amazon wants and needs speed and flexibility

• For flexibility, Amazon needs massive capacity

• Wasted when business is slow

• AWS provides speed, capacity, and flexibility

• What you need when you need it

Why Move Amazon to AWS?

So Why the Cloud?

AWS makes security

more agile

Lets you move fast while

staying safe

AWS Security Team

Operations

Application Security

Engineering

Compliance

Aligned for agility

Security Ownership as Part of DNA

Promotes culture of “everyone is an owner” for security

Makes security stakeholder in business success

Enables easier and smoother communication

Distributed Embedded

Operating Principles

Separation of duties

Different personnel across service lines

Least privilege

Technology to Automate Operational Principles

Visibility through log analytics

Shrinking the protection boundaries

Ubiquitous encryption

Pack your bags. We’re moving!

Enterprise Challenges

Fear of losing control

• Logs

• Data centers

• ACLs

• and and and

AWS Advantages

AWS provides more: control, visibility, auditability, agility

• Logging

• CloudWatch Logs

• AWS Config

• VPC Flow Logs

• Data centers

• AWS Management Console

• ACLs

• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Enterprise Challenges

Shared responsibility does not absolve you of your security

role, but lessens the load.

You still need to maintain control of the application layer.

Shared Workload

Hosted services

• Amazon WorkMail

• Amazon WorkSpaces

• Amazon WorkDocs

• Don’t need team of people managing fleet of exchange servers

• Instead need to manage subscriptions to APIs

• Maintaining two infrastructures until tipping point where all new

apps are developed and launched in the cloud.

Shared Workload

Iteratively migrate workloads until you reach that tipping point

Looking Back

• Ensure move is coordinated well

• Move different sections of the business at different times

• Make sure you consider:

• Identity federation

• IAM

• Access control

• AWS Directory Service

• Logging

• CloudWatch

Lessons Learned

• People move applications without considering all options

• “Gold Rush” mentality

• Snapping up instances that aren't needed

– Too big

– Too many

– Etc.

Look Forward

There is a tipping point where you leave your traditional

mentality behind and embrace a new way of thinking

Benefits of the Cloud

What are the advantages?

• Uptime

• Recoverability

• Lessons learned from others

• Tiny bubbles

• Small moves into the cloud

• Small blast radius should something go amiss

Looking Forward

• The future is now!

• Improvements

• Logging

• Visibility

• Instantaneous firewall changes

• Coming challenges

• Collecting vast amounts of data

• Analyzing this data

• Acting on this data

Structure your staff appropriately

Design & Deploy

Define sensible defaults

Inherit compliance controls

Use available security features

Manage templates - not instances

Operate & Improve

Constantly reduce the role of people

Reduce privileged accounts

Concentrate on what matters

Remember to complete

your evaluations!

Thank you!