Streamlining AWS Access for Your Hybrid Network

Simple steps to establish fast, secure connectivity for users and devices, regardless of location

Organizations can use the AWS Management Console to establish and manage access for their AWS services such as EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda; however, this becomes complicated as the workforce grows, expands to new locations, and needs more frequent remote access. Plus, if on- prem applications and third-party solutions come into the picture it can quickly turn into a nightmare. For organizations with multiple resource locations and remote workers, AWS controls must be managed from a higher administrative (and technical) level.

Configuring separate tools built for managing security for multi-cloud environments often requires a significant time commitment and manual work.

Complications inevitably arise such as the need to close security gaps and to provide fast and stable AWS connections to employees everywhere.

The following five steps offer guidance for addressing these challenges and streamlining AWS networking and network security. They will help save IT teams the trouble of manually configuring AWS routing tables, VPCs, security groups, and subnets while also reducing the organization’s attack surface.

The Hybrid Network Security Checklist for AWS

1. Build a Zero Trust Security Policy

A Zero Trust model based on least privilege is a great way to start streamlining AWS networking. It immediately reduces

the attack surface by limiting access to resources based on role, device, and other identifiers. The use of an Identity Provider (IdP) enables organizations to provision access to the network using Single Sign- On (SSO), giving admins the ability to automatically identify the user behind the connection and enforce access and other security policies for each user and role.

AWS IAM Identity Center accomplishes this for AWS services, but hybrid organizations need to think bigger. Their identity solution must address multicloud, on-prem, and SaaS environments, while providing context-based security at the network level. A unified network security solution integrated with a SAML 2.0 IdP makes it easy to gain the required level of visibility, along with control of network access and traffic. This unified model can also more seamlessly adapt to the nuances of a hybrid workforce with various devices, locations, and time zones.

2. Consolidate Control of Networking and Security

Admins can manipulate AWS security controls to work with external resources like other cloud providers and on-prem hardware, but this quickly becomes burdensome as more elements are added. Bigger firms must deal with the hassle and precarious security hygiene involved in importing firewall rules into AWS, grouping them separately into policies according to VPC, and double-checking across platforms to ensure there are no configuration gaps.

A single-console, cloud-based networking solution can help admins implement the same type of user-centric, segmented approach that AWS offers internally between its services,

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but to all company resources, not just AWS. These solutions can connect all network resources and introduce application-by- application granular access, improving visibility, and making it easy to give users access only to specific resources they need for their roles.

3. Supplement AWS Security Tools

While AWS offers many extra layers of security, implementing them increases the burden on admins, who must handle tasks such as creating relevant security groups for traffic, maintaining network access control lists, and managing the appropriate certificates for their VPCs. For a hybrid environment, it’s much more practical to establish site-to-site encrypted connections that only accept traffic from authorized IP addresses, protecting AWS as well as other resources using IPSec or WireGuard protocols. The security of this network is further enhanced by granular access on a per-user application basis, which ensures users only have access to the specific applications they need, and not the entire VPC.

A converged security solution also makes it easy to enforce security configurations with users across the broader network. You could mandate, for example, that contractors can only access AWS resources on an application-by-application basis via a secure web portal. You could also check the security posture of each device attempting to connect to your network and automatically deny entry to any device that doesn’t pass the test.

4. Unify and Monitor

Maintaining oversight of users and resources located anywhere in the world requires a higher level of monitoring and data capture than what AWS offers. Logging via AWS presents challenges as

administrators must activate it for each service where it’s needed, and then find a way to organize and consolidate these logs themselves, often through Amazon S3 or Firehose—requiring a separate purchase.

Alternatively, by using a service that monitors access to every single resource and user connected to the network, organizations can achieve better and less expensive compliance management. Such a solution can combine logs from other resources with AWS logs via your preferred SIEM solution without manual configuration in AWS.

5. Balance Security and Speed

A definitive element of the hybrid network is the variety of locations where users do their work. Connecting users to corporate resources demands a flexible network infrastructure that balances security and speed. Standalone VPNs from third party providers, even those labeled as business solutions are unable to satisfy this demand.

Adding security to the stack and applying it to various regions can be a difficult endeavor that requires manual configuration for user policies and traffic flows, as admins must piece together the connections between their environments.

Fortunately, security and speed can easily be balanced. A modern network security platform gives organizations the security capabilities they need – least privilege access, dedicated IP addresses, MFA, continuous checks for device posture compliance, and more – within a consolidated solution. And speed is optimized by transmitting data across a dedicated global backbone, with connection points in all major business hubs, providing a seamless connection between your users and AWS services.

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With a secure, encrypted tunnel between your Harmony SASE gateway and AWS resources, employees can connect securely. Harmony SASE also improves overall security by hiding the public IP address of your AWS resources. Your Harmony SASE network assigns your AWS VPC an internal IP address, thereby obscuring its public IP from the outside world. Internal IP addresses cannot be used outside the network, rendering your AWS resources invisible and inaccessible, which greatly reduces the attack surface.

Should you prefer direct connectivity we also provide users with a static IP address to enable allowlisting. This does not offer the same level of security as an encrypted tunnel using supported VPN protocols but allowlisting

means that only employees coming through your Harmony SASE private IP address will be able to access your AWS resources. To use IP allowlisting, add a firewall rule on the AWS side that only allows access via your Harmony SASE gateway’s IP address.

Harmony SASE also implements granular access on a per-user application basis, which ensures users only have access to the specific applications they need, and not the entire virtual private cloud (VPC). By consolidating multiple security capabilities and providing management and monitoring from a single- pane-of-glass console, Harmony SASE streamlines AWS access for your hybrid network.

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Augment AWS security with Harmony SASE

Complete the checklist with Harmony SASE Today’s hybrid workforce requires fast, easy, and secure connectivity to corporate resources without any hassles. This is exactly what Harmony SASE delivers!

Instead of attempting to sync multiple solutions together, Harmony SASE provides an intuitive, converged networking and security solution that delivers fast, encrypted connections and Zero Trust access policies for users anywhere in the world.

By consolidating multiple security capabilities and providing management and monitoring from a single-pane-of-glass console, Harmony SASE streamlines security for your hybrid network.

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