Security#

Cloud security at Amazon Web Services (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 all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud and providing you with services that you can use securely. Our security responsibility is the highest priority at AWS, and the effectiveness of our security is regularly tested and verified by third-party auditors as part of the AWS Compliance Programs.

Security in the Cloud – Your responsibility is determined by the AWS service you are using, and other factors including the sensitivity of your data, your organization’s requirements, and applicable laws and regulations.

Boto3 follows the shared responsibility model through the specific AWS services it supports. For AWS service security information, see the AWS service security documentation page and AWS services that are in scope of AWS compliance efforts by compliance program.

Data protection#

The AWS shared responsibility model applies to data protection in AWS SDK for Python (Boto3). 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 data protection purposes, we recommend that you protect AWS account credentials and set up individual user accounts with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), so that 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. To use minimum TLS version of 1.2, see Enforcing TLS 1.2
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.

We strongly recommend that you never put sensitive identifying information, such as your customers’ account numbers, into free-form fields such as a Name field. This includes when you work with Boto3 or other AWS services using the console, API, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. Any data that you enter into Boto3 or other services might get picked up for inclusion in diagnostic logs. When you provide a URL to an external server, don’t include credentials information in the URL to validate your request to that server.

Identity and access management#

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is an AWS service that helps an administrator securely control access to AWS resources. IAM administrators control who can be authenticated (signed in) and authorized (have permissions) to use AWS resources. IAM is an AWS service that you can use with no additional charge.

To use Boto3 to access AWS, you need an AWS account and AWS credentials. To increase the security of your AWS account, we recommend that you use an IAM user to provide access credentials instead of using your AWS account credentials.

For details about working with IAM, see IAM.

For an overview of IAM users and why they are important for the security of your account, see AWS Security Credentials in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Compliance validation#

The security and compliance of AWS services is assessed by third-party auditors as part of multiple AWS compliance programs. These include SOC, PCI, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and others. AWS provides a frequently updated list of AWS services in scope of specific compliance programs at AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program.

Third-party audit reports are available for you to download using AWS Artifact. For more information, see Downloading Reports in AWS Artifact.

For more information about AWS compliance programs, see AWS Compliance Programs.

Your compliance responsibility when using Boto3 to access an AWS service is determined by the sensitivity of your data, your organization’s compliance objectives, and applicable laws and regulations. If your use of an AWS service is subject to compliance with standards such as HIPAA, PCI, or FedRAMP, AWS provides resources to help:

Security and Compliance Quick Start Guides – Deployment guides that discuss architectural considerations and provide steps for deploying security-focused and compliance-focused baseline environments on AWS.
Architecting for HIPAA Security and Compliance Whitepaper – A whitepaper that describes how companies can use AWS to create HIPAA-compliant applications.
AWS Compliance Resources – A collection of workbooks and guides that might apply to your industry and location.
AWS Config – A service that assesses how well your resource configurations comply with internal practices, industry guidelines, and regulations.
AWS Security Hub – A comprehensive view of your security state within AWS that helps you check your compliance with security industry standards and best practices.

Resilience#

The AWS global infrastructure is built around AWS Regions and Availability Zones.

AWS Regions provide multiple physically separated and isolated Availability Zones, which are connected with low-latency, high-throughput, and highly redundant networking.

With Availability Zones, you can design and operate applications and databases that automatically fail over between Availability Zones without interruption. Availability Zones are more highly available, fault tolerant, and scalable than traditional single or multiple data center infrastructures.

For more information about AWS Regions and Availability Zones, see AWS Global Infrastructure.

Infrastructure security#

For information about AWS security processes, see the AWS: Overview of Security Processes whitepaper.

Enforcing TLS 1.2#

To ensure the AWS SDK for Python uses no TLS version earlier than TLS 1.2, you might need to recompile OpenSSL to enforce this minimum and then recompile Python to use the recompiled OpenSSL.

Determining supported protocols#

First, create a self-signed certificate to use for the test server and the SDK using OpenSSL:

openssl req -subj '/CN=localhost' -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 365

Then spin up a test server using OpenSSL:

openssl s_server -key key.pem -cert cert.pem -www

In a new terminal window, create a virtual environment and install the SDK:

python3 -m venv test-env
source test-env/bin/activate
pip install botocore

Create a new Python script called check.py that will use the SDK’s underlying HTTP library:

import urllib3
URL = 'https://localhost:4433/'

http = urllib3.PoolManager(
    ca_certs='cert.pem',
    cert_reqs='CERT_REQUIRED',
)
r = http.request('GET', URL)
print(r.data.decode('utf-8'))

Run the script:

python check.py

This will give details about the connection made. Search for Protocol : in the output. If the output is TLSv1.2 or later, the SDK will default to TLS v1.2 and later. If it’s earlier, you need to recompile OpenSSL and then recompile Python.

However, even if your installation of Python defaults to TLS v1.2 or later, it’s still possible for Python to renegotiate to a version earlier than TLS v1.2 if the server doesn’t support TLS v1.2+. To check that Python will not automatically renegotiate to these earlier versions, restart the test server with the following:

openssl s_server -key key.pem -cert cert.pem -no_tls1_3 -no_tls1_2 -www

Note

If you are using an older version of OpenSSL, you might not have the -no_tls_3 flag available. In this case, just remove the flag because the version of OpenSSL you are using doesn’t support TLS v1.3.

Rerun the Python script:

python check.py

If your installation of Python correctly does not renegotiate for versions earlier than TLS 1.2, you should receive an SSL error:

urllib3.exceptions.MaxRetryError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='localhost', port=4433): Max retries exceeded with url: / (Caused by SSLError(SSLError(1, '[SSL: UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL] unsupported protocol (_ssl.c:1108)')))

If you are able to make a connection, you need to recompile OpenSSL and Python to disable negotiation of protocols earlier than TLS v1.2.

Compile OpenSSL and Python#

To ensure the SDK or CLI doesn’t not negotiate for anything earlier than TLS 1.2, you need to recompile OpenSSL and Python. First copy the following content to create a script and run it:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e

OPENSSL_VERSION="1.1.1m"
OPENSSL_PREFIX="/opt/openssl-with-min-tls1_2"
PYTHON_VERSION="3.9.10"
PYTHON_PREFIX="/opt/python-with-min-tls1_2"


curl -O "https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-$OPENSSL_VERSION.tar.gz"
tar -xzf "openssl-$OPENSSL_VERSION.tar.gz"
cd openssl-$OPENSSL_VERSION
./config --prefix=$OPENSSL_PREFIX no-ssl3 no-tls1 no-tls1_1 no-shared
make > /dev/null
sudo make install_sw > /dev/null


cd /tmp
curl -O "https://www.python.org/ftp/python/$PYTHON_VERSION/Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz"
tar -xzf "Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz"
cd Python-$PYTHON_VERSION
./configure --prefix=$PYTHON_PREFIX --with-openssl=$OPENSSL_PREFIX --disable-shared > /dev/null
make > /dev/null
sudo make install > /dev/null

This will compile a version of Python that has a statically linked OpenSSL that will not automatically negotiate anything earlier than TLS 1.2. This will also install OpenSSL in the directory: /opt/openssl-with-min-tls1_2 and install Python in the directory: /opt/python-with-min-tls1_2.

After you run this script, you should be able to use this newly installed version of Python:

/opt/python-with-min-tls1_2/bin/python3 --version

This should print out:

Python 3.9.10

To confirm this new version of Python does not negotiate a version earlier than TLS 1.2, rerun the steps from Determining Supported Protocols using the newly installed Python version (that is, /opt/python-with-min-tls1_2/bin/python3).

Enforcing TLS 1.3#

Note

Some AWS Services do not yet support TLS 1.3, configuring this as your minimum version may affect SDK interoperability. We recommend testing this change with each service prior to production deployment.

The process of ensuring the AWS SDK for Python uses no TLS version earlier than TLS 1.3 is the same as the instructions in the Enforcing TLS 1.2 section with some minor modifications, primarily adding the no-tls1_2 flag to the openssl build configuration.

The following are the modified build instructions:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e

OPENSSL_VERSION="1.1.1m"
OPENSSL_PREFIX="/opt/openssl-with-min-tls1_3"
PYTHON_VERSION="3.9.10"
PYTHON_PREFIX="/opt/python-with-min-tls1_3"


curl -O "https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-$OPENSSL_VERSION.tar.gz"
tar -xzf "openssl-$OPENSSL_VERSION.tar.gz"
cd openssl-$OPENSSL_VERSION
./config --prefix=$OPENSSL_PREFIX no-ssl3 no-tls1 no-tls1_1 no-tls1_2 no-shared
make > /dev/null
sudo make install_sw > /dev/null


cd /tmp
curl -O "https://www.python.org/ftp/python/$PYTHON_VERSION/Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz"
tar -xzf "Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz"
cd Python-$PYTHON_VERSION
./configure --prefix=$PYTHON_PREFIX --with-openssl=$OPENSSL_PREFIX --disable-shared > /dev/null
make > /dev/null
sudo make install > /dev/null