Internetwork traffic privacy in Amazon Keyspaces - Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra)

Internetwork traffic privacy in Amazon Keyspaces

This topic describes how Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) secures connections from on-premises applications to Amazon Keyspaces and between Amazon Keyspaces and other AWS resources within the same AWS Region.

Traffic between service and on-premises clients and applications

You have two connectivity options between your private network and AWS:

As a managed service, Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) is protected by AWS global network security. For information about AWS security services and how AWS protects infrastructure, see AWS Cloud Security. To design your AWS environment using the best practices for infrastructure security, see Infrastructure Protection in Security Pillar AWS Well‐Architected Framework.

You use AWS published API calls to access Amazon Keyspaces through the network. Clients must support the following:

  • Transport Layer Security (TLS). We require TLS 1.2 and recommend TLS 1.3.

  • Cipher suites with perfect forward secrecy (PFS) such as DHE (Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman) or ECDHE (Elliptic Curve Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman). Most modern systems such as Java 7 and later support these modes.

Additionally, requests must be signed by using an access key ID and a secret access key that is associated with an IAM principal. Or you can use the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to generate temporary security credentials to sign requests.

Amazon Keyspaces supports two methods of authenticating client requests. The first method uses service-specific credentials, which are password based credentials generated for a specific IAM user. You can create and manage the password using the IAM console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API. For more information, see Using IAM with Amazon Keyspaces.

The second method uses an authentication plugin for the open-source DataStax Java Driver for Cassandra. This plugin enables IAM users, roles, and federated identities to add authentication information to Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) API requests using the AWS Signature Version 4 process (SigV4). For more information, see Create and configure AWS credentials for Amazon Keyspaces.

Traffic between AWS resources in the same Region

Interface VPC endpoints enable private communication between your virtual private cloud (VPC) running in Amazon VPC and Amazon Keyspaces. Interface VPC endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, which is an AWS service that enables private communication between VPCs and AWS services. AWS PrivateLink enables this by using an elastic network interface with private IPs in your VPC so that network traffic does not leave the Amazon network. Interface VPC endpoints don't require an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection. For more information, see Amazon Virtual Private Cloud and Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink). For example policies, see Using interface VPC endpoints for Amazon Keyspaces.