AWS Key Management Service (KMS) enables the creation, management, and control of cryptographic keys for applications and AWS services, using hardware security modules for security. It supports multiple key types (customer-managed, AWS-managed, AWS-owned), integrates with over 100 AWS services, and incorporates monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch and CloudTrail. Key policies and IAM policies provide access management, and KMS offers features like key rotation and multi-region functionality for enhanced data security and cost optimization.

1. AWS KMS

2. Agenda
• Service Introduction
• Service Enablement
• Design Patterns
• Access Management
• Best Practices
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3. Akesh Patil
Sr. Cloud Architect
Digital & Cloud Consulting
AWS Community Builder | AWS APN
Ambassador
Speaker

4. AWS KMS
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AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) lets you create, manage, and control
cryptographic keys across your applications and AWS services.
What is AWS KMS?
• Multi-Tenant, Managed service that makes it easy for you to create and control the
encryption keys used to encrypt your data.
• AWS KMS uses Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to protect the security of your
keys.
• Scales to any workload with low latency and 99.999% public SLA
• AWS KMS can be used to protect your data in AWS service and in your applications

5. 5
How it works

6. 6
KMS Key Hierarchy
• Within AWS KMS, key hierarchy starts with a Customer Master Key (CMK)
• CMK can be used directly to encrypt data blocks up to 4KB or it can be used to
secure data keys
• CMKs are broken down into two general types AWS-managed & Customer-
managed
• AWS KMS is integrated with over 100+ AWS services including all major
databases, analytics, storage and workflow and productivity tools
• Logging and monitoring provided by Amazon CloudWatch & CloudTrail

7. AWS Managed Keys, Customer Managed Keys & AWS Owner Keys
Customer Managed Key AWS Managed Key AWS Owned Key
Policy Customer AWS AWS
Audit Customer CloudTrail Customer CloudTrail None
Rotation Customer AWS Fixed @ 3 Years
Copy to other
regions?
Yes (For MRK keys) No Yes (Limited)
Cost $1 per month Charges on API calls No cost on key or API
calls

8. Levels of Data Encryption

9. Data Encryption with Symmetric AWS KMS
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Create a data key
1
Encrypt data with
data key
2
Decrypt data with
data key
3

10. Create a data key
Generate data key
with AWS KMS
KMS returns plaintext
and encrypted copy
of data key

11. Encrypt data with a data key
Encrypt data outside of AWS KMS
Use plaintext data key to encrypt
the data
Remove the plaintext data key
from memory as soon as possible.

12. Decrypt data with data key
Decrypt data keys using AWS KMS
Use the plaintext data key to
decrypt your data
Remove the plaintext data key
from memory as soon as possible.

13. Amazon EBS Encryption with EC2
Create encrypted EBS
volume with KMS key
Amazon EBS asks KMS
to generate encrypted
data key
Amazon EBS stores
the encrypted data
key with the volume.
Attach the EBS
volume to an EC2
instance
EC2 uses KMS key to
decrypt the EBS
volume's encrypted
data key.
EC2 stores the
plaintext data key in
hypervisor memory
EC2 uses plaintext
data key to encrypt
disk I/O to the EBS
volume
Data key persists in
the memory as long
as long EBS volume is
attached to instance

14. How unusable KMS keys affect data keys?
KMS keys can become unusable for a variety of reasons
• Disabling KMS Key
• Scheduling KMS Key deletion
• Deleting the key material
• Disconnecting the AWS CloudHSM key store
• Disconnecting the external key store

15. Impact of unusable KMS key on EBS encryption
Create encrypted
EBS volume with
KMS key
Amazon EBS asks
KMS to generate
encrypted data key
Amazon EBS stores
the encrypted data
key with the volume.
Attach the EBS
volume to an EC2
instance
EC2 uses KMS key to
decrypt the EBS
volume's encrypted
data key.
EC2 stores the
plaintext data key in
hypervisor memory
Perform an action
that makes the KMS
key unusable
Encrypted EBS
volume is detached
from the EC2
instance
Amazon EBS removes
the plaintext key
from memory
Encrypted EBS
volume is attached
to another EC2
instance
Amazon EBS cannot
use the KMS key to
decrypt the volume's
encrypted data key
Attachment fails

16. Data Encryption with Asymmetric AWS KMS
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Create a data key
pair
1
Encrypt data with a
data key pair
2
Decrypt data with a
data key pair
3

17. Create a data key pair
Generate data key pair with
AWS KMS
KMS returns plaintext public
key, plaintext and encrypted
copy of private key

18. Encrypt data with a data key pair
Encrypt data
outside of AWS
KMS
Use plaintext
public key to
encrypt the data

19. Decrypt data with a data key pair
Decrypt private keys using AWS
KMS
Use the plaintext private key to
decrypt your data
Remove the plaintext private key
from memory as soon as possible.

20. AWS KMS : Design Patterns

21. Centralized model
Key Management account
Key Policy Data encryption
key
Key Policy Data encryption
key
Customer Managed
Key
Aliases
Key Policy Data encryption
key
Key Policy Data encryption
key
Customer Managed
Key
Aliases
prod-
ebs
prod-rds
nonprod
-ebs
nonprod
-rds
AWS KMS
Production account Non-Production account
KMS Usage Role KMS Usage Role

22. Decentralized model
AWS Account 11111111111
KMS Admin
Role
KMS Keys
KMS Admin
Role
Admin 1
User 1
Assume Role
Assume Role
AWS Account 11111111111
KMS Admin
Role
KMS Keys
AWS KMS
KMS Admin
Role
Admin 1
User 1
Assume Role
Assume Role

23. How many keys I will need?
Depends on the goals and security policies (e.g. is there preference for
centralized or distributed?)
Typically isolated by service (different keys for S3, Lambda, EKS, SNS
etc.), by data classification or by application or workloads
Recommended to tying keys to data owners

24. AWS KMS : Access Management

25. Controlling access to your AWS KMS key
Key Policies
• Resource policy that is specific to individual key
• Primary way to control access to your key
• No principal including the key creator has any permissions to the key unless explicitely allowed
IAM Policies
• Policies attached to IAM entities can grant KMS permissions to many KMS keys in a single policy
• Control access to any AWS KMS operation
• Can not exclusively use IAM policies to allow access to a key, unless key policy explicitely allow
the IAM user/role access

26. Allows access to the AWS account and enables
IAM policies
It gives the AWS account that owns the KMS key full
access to the KMS key.
It allows the account to use IAM policies to allow
access to the KMS key, in addition to the key policy.
Without this permission, IAM policies that allow
access to the key are ineffective

27. Preventing unauthorized access to data

28. Access Management Use Cases
• CloudTrail to use AWS CMK
• Download S3 bucket object without KMS key permissions
• GuardDuty to export finding using KMS key in Audit account and
to S3 bucket in Log Archive account

29. AWS KMS : Monitoring with CloudWatch
Amazon CloudWatch can be used to alert on important events, such as the
following ones.
• The imported key material in a KMS key is nearing its expiration date.
• A KMS key that is pending deletion is still being used.
• The key material in a KMS key was automatically rotated.
• A KMS key was deleted.

30. Rotating AWS KMS keys
• Rotation change only KMS key material. Rest of the key metadata and access policies
remains same
• AWS KMS saves all previous versions of the cryptographic material in perpetuity so you can
decrypt any data encrypted with that KMS key.
• AWS KMS does not delete any rotated key material until you delete the KMS key.
• Does not rotate the data keys that the KMS key generated or re-encrypt any data protected
by the KMS key

31. KMS Multi-Region Keys
• Multi-region keys allow key replicas to be created in other AWS
Regions
• Useful when ciphertext in AWS Region A needs to be decrypted in
AWS Region B

32. S3 Encryption cost optimization
Historically, every object in S3
requested a data key provided by KMS
This can impact performance and
generate high cost on billions of objects
Bucket keys are intermediate key
S3 requests bucket keys from KMS and
uses these keys to derive data keys

33. Thank you
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