AWS Security Blog

Category: Networking & Content Delivery

How to protect a self-managed DNS service against DDoS attacks using AWS Global Accelerator and AWS Shield Advanced

In this blog post, I show you how to improve the distributed denial of service (DDoS) resilience of your self-managed Domain Name System (DNS) service by using AWS Global Accelerator and AWS Shield Advanced. You can use those services to incorporate some of the techniques used by Amazon Route 53 to protect against DDoS attacks. […]

Configuring AWS VPN for UK public sector use

In this post, we explain the United Kingdom (UK) National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s guidance on VPN profiles configuration, and how the configuration parameters for the AWS Virtual Private Network (AWS VPN) align with the NCSC guidance. At the end of the post, there are links to code to deploy the AWS VPN in line […]

How to enhance Amazon CloudFront origin security with AWS WAF and AWS Secrets Manager

Whether your web applications provide static or dynamic content, you can improve their performance, availability, and security by using Amazon CloudFront as your content delivery network (CDN). CloudFront is a web service that speeds up distribution of your web content through a worldwide network of data centers called edge locations. CloudFront ensures that end-user requests […]

How to add DNS filtering to your NAT instance with Squid

September 23, 2020: The squid configuration file in this blog post and associated YAML template have been updated. September 4, 2019: We’ve updated this blog post, initially published on January 26, 2016. Major changes include: support of Amazon Linux 2, no longer having to compile Squid 3.5, and a high availability version of the solution […]

How to configure an LDAPS endpoint for Simple AD

In this blog post, we show you how to configure an LDAPS (LDAP over SSL or TLS) encrypted endpoint for Simple AD so that you can extend Simple AD over untrusted networks. Our solution uses Network Load Balancer (NLB) as SSL/TLS termination. The data is then decrypted and sent to Simple AD. Network Load Balancer […]

What is a cyber range and how do you build one on AWS?

In this post, we provide advice on how you can build a current cyber range using AWS services. Conducting security incident simulations is a valuable exercise for organizations. As described in the AWS Security Incident Response Guide, security incident response simulations (SIRS) are useful tools to improve how an organization handles security events. These simulations […]

How to set up an outbound VPC proxy with domain whitelisting and content filtering

May 12, 2025: We’ve updated the CloudFormation template to use a launch template instead of a launch configuration. November 16, 2020: We’ve updated the CloudFormation template and the launch stack URL used in this solution. July 24, 2019: We’ve added a link to a GitHub repository that contains the stack content for this solution. Controlling […]

Simplify DNS management in a multi-account environment with Route 53 Resolver

March 31, 2025: We provided a note and links to resources in the third use case on using Route 53 profiles as a best practice to enable DNS resolutions between VPCs in different AWS accounts. April 19, 2023: In the section “Create private hosted zones” we updated step 1 to fix syntax error. September 27, […]

Enhanced Domain Protections for Amazon CloudFront Requests

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be adding enhanced domain protections to Amazon CloudFront. The short version is this: the new measures are designed to ensure that requests handled by CloudFront are handled on behalf of legitimate domain owners. Using CloudFront to receive traffic for a domain you aren’t authorized to use is already a violation […]

How to Use Bucket Policies and Apply Defense-in-Depth to Help Secure Your Amazon S3 Data

Amazon S3 provides comprehensive security and compliance capabilities that meet even the most stringent regulatory requirements. It gives you flexibility in the way you manage data for cost optimization, access control, and compliance. However, because the service is flexible, a user could accidentally configure buckets in a manner that is not secure. For example, let’s […]