Data protection in AWS Secrets Manager

The AWS shared responsibility model applies to data protection in AWS Secrets Manager. 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. This content includes 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 user accounts with 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 recommend TLS 1.2 or later.

• 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 personal 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 fields such as a Name field. This includes when you work with Secrets Manager or other AWS services using the console, API, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. Any data that you enter into tags or free-form 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 at rest

Secrets Manager uses encryption via AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to protect the confidentiality of data at rest. AWS KMS provides a key storage and encryption service used by many AWS services. AWS Secrets Manager associates every secret with an AWS KMS customer master key (CMK). The associated CMK can either be the default Secrets Manager CMK for the account, or you can create your own CMK. For more information, see Encrypting and decrypting secrets.

Encryption in transit

Secrets Manager provides secure and private endpoints for encrypting data in transit. The secure and private endpoints allows AWS to protect the integrity of API requests to Secrets Manager . AWS requires API calls be signed by the caller using X.509 certificates and/or a AWS Secrets Manager Secret Access Key. This requirement is stated in the Signature Version 4 Signing Process (Sigv4).

If you use the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) or any of the AWS SDKs to make calls to AWS, those tools automatically use the specified access key to sign the requests for you. When you configure the CLI or any of the AWS SDKs, you specify the access key to use.

Encryption key management

When Secrets Manager needs to encrypt a new version of the protected secret data, Secrets Manager sends a request to AWS KMS to generate a new data key from the specified CMK. Secrets Manager uses this data key for envelope encryption. Secrets Manager stores the encrypted data key with the encrypted secret. When the secret needs to be decrypted, Secrets Manager asks AWS KMS to decrypt the data key. Secrets Manager then uses the decrypted data key to decrypt the encrypted secret. Secrets Manager never stores the data key in unencrypted form, and removes the key from memory as soon as possible. For more information, see Encrypting and decrypting secrets.

Inter-network traffic privacy

AWS offers options for maintaining privacy when routing traffic through known and private network routes.

Traffic between service and on-premises clients and applications

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

• An AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection. For more information, see What is AWS Site-to-Site VPN?

• An AWS Direct Connect connection. For more information, see What is AWS Direct Connect?

Traffic between AWS resources in the same Region

If want to secure traffic between Secrets Manager and API clients in AWS, set up an AWS PrivateLink to privately access Secrets Manager API endpoints.