AWS Security Blog

Category: Advanced (300)

Accelerate incident response with Amazon Security Lake

September 20, 2024: Updated the incident response life cycle related wording in the first blog of this series, so to better align with the NIST defined terms. This blog post is the first of a two-part series that will demonstrate the value of Amazon Security Lake and how you can use it and other resources to accelerate […]

High-level diagram for SAML IdP-initiated authentication flow in a web or mobile app

How to set up SAML federation in Amazon Cognito using IdP-initiated single sign-on, request signing, and encrypted assertions

When an identity provider (IdP) serves multiple service providers (SPs), IdP-initiated single sign-on provides a consistent sign-in experience that allows users to start the authentication process from one centralized portal or dashboard. It helps administrators have more control over the authentication process and simplifies the management. However, when you support IdP-initiated authentication, the SP (Amazon […]

Resources deployed in the customer environment by the solution

Governing and securing AWS PrivateLink service access at scale in multi-account environments

Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers have been adopting the approach of using AWS PrivateLink to have secure communication to AWS services, their own internal services, and third-party services in the AWS Cloud. As these environments scale, the number of PrivateLink connections outbound to external services and inbound to internal services increase and are spread out […]

Custom SMS sender trigger flow

How to use WhatsApp to send Amazon Cognito notification messages

While traditional channels like email and SMS remain important, businesses are increasingly exploring alternative messaging services to reach their customers more effectively. In recent years, WhatsApp has emerged as a simple and effective way to engage with users. According to statista, as of 2024, WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messenger app worldwide and has […]

AWS Firewall Manager logo

How to enforce a security baseline for an AWS WAF ACL across your organization using AWS Firewall Manager

Most organizations prioritize protecting their web applications that are exposed to the internet. Using the AWS WAF service, you can create rules to control bot traffic, help prevent account takeover fraud, and block common threat patterns such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting (XSS). Further, for those customers managing multi-account environments, it is possible to […]

smart home

Using Amazon Verified Permissions to manage authorization for AWS IoT smart home applications

This blog post introduces how manufacturers and smart appliance consumers can use Amazon Verified Permissions to centrally manage permissions and fine-grained authorizations. Developers can offer more intuitive, user-friendly experiences by designing interfaces that align with user personas and multi-tenancy authorization strategies, which can lead to higher user satisfaction and adoption. Traditionally, implementing authorization logic using […]

Accelerate security automation using Amazon CodeWhisperer

In an ever-changing security landscape, teams must be able to quickly remediate security risks. Many organizations look for ways to automate the remediation of security findings that are currently handled manually. Amazon CodeWhisperer is an artificial intelligence (AI) coding companion that generates real-time, single-line or full-function code suggestions in your integrated development environment (IDE) to […]

The curious case of faster AWS KMS symmetric key rotation

Today, AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) is introducing faster options for automatic symmetric key rotation. We’re also introducing rotate on-demand, rotation visibility improvements, and a new limit on the price of all symmetric keys that have had two or more rotations (including existing keys). In this post, I discuss all those capabilities and changes. […]

Cognito Architecture

Detecting and remediating inactive user accounts with Amazon Cognito

For businesses, particularly those in highly regulated industries, managing user accounts isn’t just a matter of security but also a compliance necessity. In sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government, where regulations often mandate strict control over user access, disabling stale user accounts is a key compliance activity. In this post, we show you a […]

Use Amazon Verified Permissions for fine-grained authorization at scale

Implementing user authentication and authorization for custom applications requires significant effort. For authentication, customers often use an external identity provider (IdP) such as Amazon Cognito. Yet, authorization logic is typically implemented in code. This code can be prone to errors, especially as permissions models become complex, and presents significant challenges when auditing permissions and deciding […]