AWS rolls out new secure access features and cloud instances for enterprises

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced new features that allow users to protect application environments on its cloud platform. New instance configurations have also been released.

AWS has launched a tool called EC2 Instance Connect, reports Silicon Angle. This tool is designed to provide greater security for the IT staff managing a company’s cloud environment.

For sensitive tasks such as configuration updates, administrators usually use an SSH protocol to establish an encrypted connection to the system being modified. The technology used is virtually the same for on premise and cloud environments. EC2 Instance Connect allows companies to manage SSH sessions with the built-in access control mechanisms of AWS.

The tool integrates with the IEM directory system so that IT departments can limit which instances a team member has access to, based on his or her role. EC2 Instance Connect also makes it possible to log SSH sessions with CloudTrail. Furthermore, there is an option to generate a new cryptographic key for each SSH connection, so that they cannot be reused by hackers.

ECS

AWS has also introduced new access controls for ECS, the software container management system. As with the SSH tool, the access controls allow you to limit administrators’ permissions based on their area of responsibility.

IT departments can now specify access rules to specific hardware resources and tasks. It is also possible to mark group assets with tags, which makes it possible to combine them with access restrictions.

Finally, the company has added new instance configurations to its portfolio. This includes m5.16xlarge and m5.8xlarge, which contain 32 and 64 processor cores along with 1.8 to 3.6 GB of storage. The other two new instances are the r5.8xlarge and r5.16xlarge, which have similar specifications. However, these two options come with twice as much RAM.