Best practices for using Security Hub policies

When implementing Security Hub policies across your organization, following established best practices helps ensure successful deployment and maintenance of your security configurations. These guidelines specifically address the unique aspects of Security Hub policy management and enforcement within AWS Organizations.

Policy design principles

Before creating Security Hub policies, establish clear principles for your policy structure. Keep policies simple and avoid complex cross-attribute or nested rules that make it difficult to determine the final outcome. Start with broad policies at the organization root level and refine them through child policies where needed.

Consider using empty region lists strategically. You can leave enable_in_regions empty when you only need to disable Security Hub in specific regions, or leave disable_in_regions empty to keep regions unmanaged by policy. This flexibility helps you maintain precise control over your security monitoring coverage.

Region management strategies

When managing regions through Security Hub policies, consider these proven approaches. Use ALL_SUPPORTED when you want to automatically include future regions in your security coverage. For more granular control, explicitly list regions rather than relying on ALL_SUPPORTED, especially when different regions require different security configurations.

Document your region-specific requirements, particularly for:

• Compliance-mandated regions that require specific configurations

• Development versus production environment differences

• Opt-in regions with special considerations

• Regions where Security Hub must remain disabled

Policy inheritance planning

Carefully plan your policy inheritance structure to maintain effective security control while allowing necessary flexibility. Document which organizational units can modify inherited policies and what modifications are allowed. Consider restricting inheritance operators (@@assign, @@append, @@remove) at parent levels when you need to enforce strict security controls.

Monitoring and validation

Implement regular monitoring practices to ensure your policies remain effective. Review policy attachments periodically, especially after organizational changes. Validate that region configurations match your intended security coverage, particularly when using ALL_SUPPORTED or when managing multiple region lists.

Troubleshooting strategies

When troubleshooting Security Hub policies, focus first on policy precedence and inheritance. Remember that disable configurations take precedence over enable configurations when regions appear in both lists. Check policy inheritance chains to understand how parent and child policies combine to create the effective policy for each account.