Data protection in AWS AppSync - AWS AppSync
Encryption in motion

Data protection in AWS AppSync

The AWS shared responsibility model applies to data protection in AWS AppSync. As described in this model, AWS is responsible for protecting the global infrastructure that runs all of the AWS Cloud. You are responsible for maintaining control over your content that is hosted on this infrastructure. You are also responsible for the security configuration and management tasks for the AWS services that you use. For more information about data privacy, see the Data Privacy FAQ. For information about data protection in Europe, see the AWS Shared Responsibility Model and GDPR blog post on the AWS Security Blog.

For data protection purposes, we recommend that you protect AWS account credentials and set up individual users with AWS IAM Identity Center or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). That way, each user is given only the permissions necessary to fulfill their job duties. We also recommend that you secure your data in the following ways:

  • Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) with each account.

  • Use SSL/TLS to communicate with AWS resources. We require TLS 1.2 and recommend TLS 1.3.

  • Set up API and user activity logging with AWS CloudTrail.

  • Use AWS encryption solutions, along with all default security controls within AWS services.

  • Use advanced managed security services such as Amazon Macie, which assists in discovering and securing sensitive data that is stored in Amazon S3.

  • If you require FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules when accessing AWS through a command line interface or an API, use a FIPS endpoint. For more information about the available FIPS endpoints, see Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2.

We strongly recommend that you never put confidential or sensitive information, such as your customers' email addresses, into tags or free-form text fields such as a Name field. This includes when you work with AWS AppSync or other AWS services using the console, API, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. Any data that you enter into tags or free-form text fields used for names may be used for billing or diagnostic logs. If you provide a URL to an external server, we strongly recommend that you do not include credentials information in the URL to validate your request to that server.

Encryption in motion

AWS AppSync, like all AWS services, makes use of TLS1.2 and beyond for communication when using the AWS published APIs and SDKs.

Using AWS AppSync with other AWS services such as Amazon DynamoDB ensures encryption in transit: All AWS services use TLS 1.2 and beyond to communicate with one another unless otherwise specified. For resolvers that utilize Amazon EC2 or CloudFront, it is your responsibility to verify that TLS (HTTPS) is configured and secure. For information on configuring HTTPS in Amazon EC2, see Configuring SSL/TLS on Amazon Linux 2 in the Amazon EC2 user guide. For information about configuring HTTPS on CloudFront, see HTTPS in Amazon CloudFront in the CloudFront user guide.