AWS BYOK
Technology advances have enabled organizations to outsource their software development and business processes to highly distributed cloud platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS allows users to store, process, and analyze ever increasing amounts of data in the cloud, driving more comprehensive customer insights that can inform product, pricing, or other business decisions. However, there are still security concerns associated with using cloud-based services as companies must ensure the safety of their data from unauthorized access or exfiltration. To alleviate these security issues, Amazon Web Services offers the Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) service. BYOK enables organizations to establish dedicated access control and encryption policies for their data stored in AWS cloud storage services such as Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, and Amazon EFS. By leveraging the BYOK feature, organizations are able to implement unique, increased security measures to protect their data. Through BYOK, the enterprise subscriber is able to create their own encryption keys and store them separately from the AWS platform. These keys are not stored in Amazon-controlled databases and the keys do not have access to the AWS platform. This ensures that even if AWS were compromised, the subscriber’s data would remain protected. As the subscriber, you are the only entity that has access to your encryption keys – allowing you to manage and maintain control over your data. Further, Amazon Web Services supports the use of Hardware Security Modules (HSM) to safeguard the storage of encryption keys. HSMs provide an extra layer of security as all transmissions of keys are encrypted within the hardware chip, preventing unauthorized access. Organizations utilizing AWS services for Salesforce release management, Salesforce data backup and recovery, and Salesforce security solutions are able to employ a stronger level of security by leveraging the Bring Your Own Key solution. By managing encryption keys in-house, organizations are able to better ensure the integrity of their data while increasing system performance and reducing recovery times in the event of an attack. Successfully implementing BYOK requires a great deal of expertise as organizations must understand the application’s key management interface and encryption algorithm. In addition, organizations need to be aware of the potential pitfalls associated with the storage of large encryption keys, as stored keys may become outdated and require revisions as applications evolve. Through the Bring Your Own Key feature, Amazon Web Services enables organizations to reinforce their security controls and facilitate more comprehensive data protection. By leveraging this service, organizations utilizing AWS for salesforce release management, Salesforce data backup and recovery, and Salesforce security solutions can better ensure the security and privacy of their data.
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