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5 Tips for Securing Your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

By January 1, 2020No Comments6 min read
virtual pirvate cloud security

Amazon VPC is one of the most famous features of Amazon Web Services (AWS). You can use it for isolating your virtual network. There are many benefits of using Amazon VPC like Elastic Network interface, DHCP options, and private IP addresses. It will also help you in increasing the security of your network. The virtual private network provided by VPC is similar to traditional private networks. But, it offers many more benefits like flexibility and scalability. You can easily scale up your resources without buying new equipment.

There are many different parts of VPC like gateways, network interface, endpoints, subnets, and IP addresses. Amazon Web Services is already providing good security to its users. But, it is best to ensure that your hosted servers and data are secured from attackers. In this article, we are going to share 5 tips that you can use for securing your Amazon VPC.

  1. Create a detailed plan

First, you should work on creating a detailed plan. This step must be done before creating any new VPC. Your IT department must outline the working and design of your VPC. They must understand the main purpose of creating a new VPC. This will help you in improving the security of your Virtual Private Cloud. You can use your VPC for hosting your public website. VPC can also be used for extending your corporate network by using the AWS cloud. Most companies are switching to the AWS cloud for expanding their network.

It is also important to understand what type of users or services are going to access your VPC. If you are using VPC for hosting your critical applications, then you should give top priority to security. This will help you in protecting your critical data from attackers. Also, you should figure out the connectivity that you are going to use. You need to connect your external or internal network with your VPC. Your plan must contain important details like the number of VPC you need. All these questions will help you in designing a detailed plan. You can use this plan for creating a security strategy.

  1. Create a new Amazon VPC

If you are using Amazon Web services, then you will already get a default Virtual Private Cloud. Amazon is providing VPC to all their AWS users. But, it is not recommended to use this default private cloud. The default VPC has very low security. It will use your main routing table. Thus, there are no restrictions on outbound and inbound traffics. It is best to set up your own VPC. This will help you in increasing the security of your VPC. You can define your own custom route tables for your virtual private cloud. But, you should not modify your main routing table. If you are modifying your main routing table, then one error can shut down your whole AWS environment.

  1. Create multiple Virtual Private clouds

It is always best to create multiple VPC’s. Even if you only need VPC, you should start by creating at least two VPC. You should use one VPC for main production and one VPC for development purposes. The temporary VPC will act like a mirror where you can do development work. This will ensure that you are only launching finished products. You can use one of your VPC for hosting your servers, data, and applications. Also, you must do proper testing before deploying your applications. If you have extra VPC, then you can use it for testing purposes. This will ensure that you are not messing with your production environment. You might think that this rule is obvious. But, most enterprises don’t follow this rule due to the Agile development model.

  1. Use security groups

Security groups will help you in monitoring your traffic. It is basically a virtual firewall. Security groups will determine if a data packet can leave or enter or VPC. Thus, it will act as a security barrier. You can create a security group for your Virtual private cloud. It will automatically allow all the unrestricted outbound traffic to enter your cloud. But, it will restrict inbound traffic. This is the best configuration. If you want to give access to inbound traffic, then you need to create new rules. Thus, you can create new rules according to your business needs.

NACLs or Network access control lists is also a virtual firewall. It will allow you to control the flow of traffic in your VPC. Thus, you can block outward or inward traffic. By default, it will restrict both the outbound and inbound traffic. Thus, you need to create new rules according to your business needs.

You can use security groups for controlling traffic at the instance level. But, NACLs will only control traffic for the subnets. These subnets are already defined for your VPC. If you are using multiple subnets, then NACL will be applied to every subnet. This will actually decrease the security of your AWS resources. Thus, it is best to use security groups for protecting your VPC.

  1. Elastic IP Addresses

If you are going to use the internet for connecting your users with your applications, then the Elastic IP address is perfect for you. You can also use public IP addresses for connecting your services. But, it is best to use elastic IP addresses. The EIPs will offer you a better availability. If some of your instances are not working, then your public IP addresses will also not work. But, if you are using EIP, then you can easily shift it to some other instance. Thus, EIP is perfect for VPC.

Conclusion

These are some basic practices that you can use for protecting your Amazon VPC. If you are following these practices, then you don’t need to worry about your VPC security. Amazon is already providing good security to AWS. But, still, it is best to increase the security level of your cloud servers. This will ensure that your data is protected from hackers. If you want more tips regarding AWS, then you can contact Bleuwire.

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