AWS KMS (Key Management Service)

AWS KMS enables users to create, manage, remove, and handle keys to encode stored data in AWS databases and resources.

AWS KMS is a product of Amazon Web Services. It enables users to create, manage, remove, and handle keys to encode stored data in AWS databases and resources. KMS is incorporated with AWS CloudTrail to provide you with crucial usage logs. These logs help you meet your regulatory and compliance requirements.

KMS is a secure and dependable service that employs hardware security protocols that have been evaluated and are in the procedure of being tested to safeguard our keys. The KMS offers a highly available key storage management and auditing solution. This allows you to encode data within your applications.

KMS provides a unified view of all AWS keys in use, resulting in centralized encryption control. Admins can use the service to create keys and usage policies, as well as to enable logging.

KMS employs envelope encryption for data protection, which uses two distinct keys. The data key, generated by AWS, encodes each bit of data and resource. Data and resources are encrypted with a customer master key (CMK) defined in KMS and saved in AWS. Whenever a user requires to decode data, the encoded key will be sent to KMS and translated with the CMK.

In this blog, we will be discussing KMS in brief. But, before proceeding further, let’s go through the topics that we will be covering in this blog:

1. Features of AWS KMS
2. Benefits of AWS KMS
3. Pricing of AWS KMS
4. How does AWS KMS work?
5. Security Automation of AWS KMS
6. Why should you use AWS KMS?
7. Client-Side Encryption
8. Server-Side Encryption
9. What is a custom key store?

Features of KMS

There are many features of KMS, and some of those are:

1. Unified key management: AWS Key Management Service (KMS) gives you central authority over your keys’ entire life cycle and authorization. You can produce new keys and differentiate who can manage keys from those who can use them.
2. Audit capabilities: If you have AWS CloudTrail activated for your AWS account, every request users make to AWS KMS is logged. The data collected includes the user’s information, duration, and the key used.
3. Secure: AWS KMS prevents anyone, including AWS staff, from obtaining your plaintext keys out of service. Keys generated by the AWS KMS service are not ever forwarded beyond the AWS region in which they were developed.
4. Custom key: AWS KMS helps build your key store utilizing HSMs that you control. Users can use KMS keys with any AWS service that incorporates AWS KMS.
5. Asymmetric keys: AWS KMS allows you to create and then use asymmetric KMS keys and data key pairs. A user can use a KMS key for signing or encryption key pair.

Benefits of KMS

There are many benefits of KMS, and some of those are:

1. Fully managed: As users unlock the encoded data by assigning permission to use the keys, AWS Key Management Service handles your keys’ long-term and physical security, enforcing your permissions.
2. Encrypt data in your applications: You also can create data encryption management into your applications, no matter where they operate, using simple APIs. 
3. Low cost: There are no charges to use AWS Key Management Service. You only have to pay when using or managing the keys after the free tier has expired.
4. Digitally sign data: AWS Key Management Service allows users to perform digital signing utilizing asymmetric key pairs to protect the integrity of your data.
5. Built-in auditing: With the help of AWS CloudTrail, AWS KMS captures all API requests, including key management activities and key usage.

Pricing of KMS

Each KMS key you create in KMS will cost $1 per month. The $1/month fee applies to symmetric keys, asymmetric keys, and so on.

AWS Key Management Service offers a free tier of 20,000 requests per month across all regions where the service is available. Costs for each API request to the AWS KMS (outside of the free tier) in the Asia Pacific (Mumbai):

How does KMS work?

To deliver encryption or provide multiple services using key usage logs to meet regulatory, compliance requirements, and auditing, AWS Key Management Service is typically interconnected with other AWS CloudTrail services.

KMS enables you to manage and store your keys securely. CMKs (Customer Master Keys) are the saved keys. Government-approved Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) generate and protect these keys. And you will be able only to use them in plaintext in the modules.

Using master keys, you can straightforwardly submit information to encode or decode KMS. You can specify which users can have them for encoding or decoding data by enforcing specific application policies.

Security Automation of KMS

Suppose, while monitoring your CMKs, a specific action is detected. In that case, to deactivate the CMK, a user can set up an AWS Lambda function. A promising exposure could be cut off in minutes without the need for human intervention by leveraging AWS’s automation tools.

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Why should you use KMS?

AWS’s Key Management Service encodes the data. The KMS’s purpose is to manage and store those encryption keys. If you have sensitive data which must not be accessible to unauthorized users, data encryption is essential. Implement data encryption, including both at-rest and in-transit data.

Client-Side Encryption and Server-Side Encryption are the two main methods for implementing encryption at rest.

Client-Side Encryption

This type of encryption allows you to encrypt data on the client end and send this towards the server or any backend services such as S3, EBS, etc. In a nutshell, client-side encryption requires you to encode your data and manage one’s keys.

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Server-Side Encryption

AWS encrypts the data and manages the keys for you in this type of encryption, whereas you allow your server-side services to manage the keys on your behalf and encode the data.

What is a custom key store?

The KMS custom key store feature incorporates AWS CloudHSM controls with the integration and ease of use of AWS KMS. You can set up your CloudHSM cluster and authorize KMS to use it instead of the default KMS key store as a dedicated key store for your keys. When creating keys in KMS, you have the option of generating the key material in your CloudHSM cluster.

You can learn more about AWS resources by reading the following articles:

Conclusion

In today’s article, we went over the AWS Network KMS Firewall in great detail. By reading this article, I hope that you have been able to alleviate some of your concerns.

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