Security in Amazon Redshift - Amazon Redshift

Security in Amazon Redshift

Cloud security at AWS is the highest priority. As an AWS customer, you benefit from a data center and network architecture that is built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations.

Security is a shared responsibility between AWS and you. The shared responsibility model describes this as security of the cloud and security in the cloud:

  • Security of the cloud – AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs AWS services in the AWS Cloud. AWS also provides you with services that you can use securely. The effectiveness of our security is regularly tested and verified by third-party auditors as part of the AWS compliance programs. To learn about the compliance programs that apply to Amazon Redshift, see AWS services in scope by compliance program.

  • Security in the cloud – Your responsibility is determined by the AWS service that you use. You are also responsible for other factors including the sensitivity of your data, your organization's requirements, and applicable laws and regulations.

Access to Amazon Redshift resources is controlled at four levels:

  • Cluster management – The ability to create, configure, and delete clusters is controlled by the permissions given to the user or account associated with your AWS security credentials. Users with the proper permissions can use the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or Amazon Redshift Application Programming Interface (API) to manage their clusters. This access is managed by using IAM policies.

    Important

    Amazon Redshift has a collection of best practices for managing permissions, identities and secure access. We recommend that you get familiar with these as you get started with Amazon Redshift. For more information, see Identity and access management in Amazon Redshift.

  • Cluster connectivity – Amazon Redshift security groups specify the AWS instances that are authorized to connect to an Amazon Redshift cluster in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) format. For information about creating Amazon Redshift, Amazon EC2, and Amazon VPC security groups and associating them with clusters, see Amazon Redshift security groups.

  • Database access – The ability to access database objects, such as tables and views, is controlled by database user accounts in the Amazon Redshift database. Users can only access resources in the database that their user accounts have been granted permission to access. You create these Amazon Redshift user accounts and manage permissions by using the CREATE USER, CREATE GROUP, GRANT, and REVOKE SQL statements. For more information, see Managing database security in the Amazon Redshift Database Developer Guide.

  • Temporary database credentials and single sign-on – In addition to creating and managing database users using SQL commands, such as CREATE USER and ALTER USER, you can configure your SQL client with custom Amazon Redshift JDBC or ODBC drivers. These drivers manage the process of creating database users and temporary passwords as part of the database logon process.

    The drivers authenticate database users based on AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication. If you already manage user identities outside of AWS, you can use a SAML 2.0-compliant identity provider (IdP) to manage access to Amazon Redshift resources. You use an IAM role to configure your IdP and AWS to permit your federated users to generate temporary database credentials and log on to Amazon Redshift databases. For more information, see Using IAM authentication to generate database user credentials.

This documentation helps you understand how to apply the shared responsibility model when using Amazon Redshift. The following topics show you how to configure Amazon Redshift to meet your security and compliance objectives. You also learn how to use other AWS services that help you to monitor and secure your Amazon Redshift resources.

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