Month: August 2023

AWS’s Approach to Achieving and Maintaining ISO 27001 and SOC Compliance

Two of the world’s most widely used data security standards are ISO 27001 and SOC Compliance Framework. They are two of the many global standards and frameworks Amazon has adopted as part of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Compliance Programs.

Amazon’s processes achieve and maintain compliance with these standards to ensure AWS customers benefit from strong data security practices and regulatory adherence.

How Amazon Complies with ISO/IEC 27001 Standards
ISO/IEC 27001 is among the world’s most widely-used information security management system (ISMS) standards. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is certified for compliance with ISO/IEC 27001:2013, the 2013 version of the standard.

Amazon’s internal processes for ensuring compliance consist of three elements:

1. Regular evaluations of current information security risks, threats, and vulnerabilities
2. Designing and implementing risk management procedures and other risk controls in accordance with ISO 27001 standards
3. Application of an overall risk management process to ensure current security controls meet Amazon’s needs

Independent third-party auditors conduct AWS’s ISO/IEC 27001:2013 audits to ensure an impartial certification process.

Controls and Measures Ensuring Amazon’s SOC Compliance
System and Organisation Controls (SOC) is a data security auditing standard created by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Service providers must adhere to the five Trust Service Criteria (TSC) to be SOC compliant: Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy.

As a cloud service provider, Amazon’s systems store large quantities of potentially sensitive data. Amazon certifies AWS is fully SOC compliant to ensure data safety, privacy, and protection for all AWS customers.

As with ISO/IEC 27001 standards, AWS receives periodic audits from independent third-party organisations to verify the firm’s adherence to SOC 2 standards. AWS customers can read SOC 1 and SOC 2 reports on AWS Artifact. SOC 3 reports are available publicly in whitepaper format.

Which AWS Regions are Covered by ISO 27001 and SOC Compliances?
AWS regions covered by ISO 27001 certification include 29 data centres worldwide and over 100 AWS Edge locations, ensuring AWS customers have access to an extensive range of ISO 27001-compliant regions.

The SOC 3 report details the list of SOC-compliant AWS regions. SOC-compliant data centres are available in over 20 countries and 140 Amazon Edge locations.

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Scheduling an AWS Well-Architected Review with experienced AWS partner WOLK Technology is the best solution to ensure the performance of your workflows. Contact us today to learn more.

Strategies for Achieving Carbon Neutrality and Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions on AWS

Amazon’s commitment to sustainability and carbon neutrality has helped ensure Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the world’s most sustainable cloud service providers.

Moving to AWS is one of the most efficient ways to ensure your business can reduce its carbon footprint. Discover the most efficient carbon neutrality strategies on AWS and how to implement them.

Workload Efficiency Optimisation
Numerous AWS services and features are designed to help you optimise your business’s resource utilisation, such as AWS EC2 Auto Scaling. You can also opt for serverless cloud computing solutions like AWS Lambda, reducing costs and resource usage by only paying for the code compute time.

Businesses using resource scaling, optimisation, and serverless computing can reduce their environmental impact. These solutions can lower your organisation’s carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reduce overall energy consumption, and boost cost-effectiveness.

Selecting a Carbon-Free Region
AWS cloud services is divided into various geographic regions. While many other factors can affect your region choices, such as regulatory compliance, latency, and costs, choosing an AWS region that meets your sustainability goals is possible.

AWS offers multiple carbon-free regions, where data centres receive at least 95% of their power from renewable energy sources. Examples of highly sustainable AWS regions include the following:

● U.S. East: Northern Virginia and Ohio
● U.S. West: Northern California and Oregon
● GovCloud: US-East and US-West
● Canada (Central)
● Europe: Ireland, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Paris, Stockholm

Remember to check the AWS region you selected has the services and features you need to run your workloads. You can use the complete AWS Regional Services Lists to help you make the right choice.

Building Sustainable, Energy-Efficient Applications
Although simply migrating to AWS can help your business become more energy efficient, Amazon recommends following all aspects of the Sustainability pillar of its Well-Architected Framework for the best results.

One of the essential design principles of sustainability is “Understand your impact”. Tools such as the AWS Custom Carbon Footprint Tool are designed to let you track, measure, review, and predict your AWS usage’s carbon footprint. This tool’s information is invaluable to help you build more sustainable and energy-efficient applications.

Using Amazon instance types with the lowest environmental impact can also help reduce your applications’ carbon footprint. For example, consider transitioning away from x86-based EC2 instances in favour of AWS Graviton equivalents. These instances are powered using the energy-efficient Graviton2 and Graviton3 processors, designed to minimise energy consumption for the same or better performance.

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WOLK Technology offers tailored IT solutions to help your business meet your operational goals sustainably. We are a certified AWS Well-Architected Program partner with the resources to help you become compliant with the AWS Sustainability pillar. Contact us today to learn more.

Understanding the ISO 27001 and SOC Compliance Standards and Their Importance for AWS Customers

Organisations using Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a cloud provider must adhere to the latest data and information security standards. Two standards cover data safety and information security on AWS: ISO 27001 and the SOC Compliance Framework.

Understanding these standards is necessary for AWS customers to build a secure workplace environment.

The ISO 27001 Standard Explained
ISO/IEC 27001 is an international information security management systems (ISMS) standard. It is the world’s best-known ISMS standard and one of the most widely used. Conformity with the ISO/IEC 27001 standard is considered one of the most efficient methods to build an organisation’s resilience against cyber threats of all types.

ISO/IEC 27001 provides organisations with internationally recognised methods to build, implement, maintain, and improve an ISMS. It provides a comprehensive, systematic approach to protecting organisational data and information assets, ensuring safety, integrity, and confidentiality without compromising availability.

Amazon Web Services is certified for compliance with ISO/IEC 27001:2013, the 2013 version of the standard. Most Amazon services, including EC2, S3, Lambda, and Macie, are compliant with ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

What is the SOC Compliance Framework?
The System and Organisation Controls (SOC) Compliance Framework was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

It is a data security framework designed to protect organisations’ customer data from vulnerabilities, theft, unauthorised access, and other security incidents. The framework assesses an organisation’s data management based on five criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

Most AWS services are SOC-compliant, including Amazon Redshift, GuardDuty, FSx, and WorkSpaces.

Why ISO 27001 and SOC Compliance Matter to AWS Customers
Compliance with these standards helps AWS customers build and maintain data security within their workflow and AWS ecosystems. Besides strong data security and effective risk management, adherence to these standards provides multiple additional benefits:

● Many industries impose specific data security and privacy requirements. Ensuring your AWS workflows comply with ISO 27001 and SOC can give you the peace of mind you meet these requirements and remain in line with your industry’s regulations.
● AWS customers complying with ISO 27001 and SOC standards can provide security reassurances to their partners and stakeholders. Adopting these internationally recognised standards demonstrates your dedication to data security.
● ISO 27001 and SOC compliance can give AWS customers a competitive edge. It showcases your commitment to protecting data, which can help privacy-minded customers choose your offerings or entrust their data to you.

Boost Organisational Data Security with WOLK
Security is at the forefront of all successful organisations. As an AWS Well-Architected Program Partner, WOLK has the resources to help you comply with data security standards and frameworks for your AWS environment. Contact WOLK today for a free review.