Check for any public facing RDS database instances provisioned in your AWS account and restrict unauthorized access in order to minimise security risks. To restrict access to any publicly accessible RDS database instance, you must disable the database Publicly Accessible flag and update the VPC security group associated with the instance.
This rule can help you with the following compliance standards:
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- APRA
- MAS
- NIST 800-53 (Rev. 4)
This rule can help you work with the AWS Well-Architected Framework
This rule resolution is part of the Cloud Conformity Security & Compliance tool for AWS
When the VPC security group associated with an RDS instance allows unrestricted access (0.0.0.0/0), everyone and everything on the Internet can establish a connection to your database and this can increase the opportunity for malicious activities such as brute force attacks, SQL injections or DoS/DDoS attacks.
Audit
To determine if your RDS database instances are publicly accessible, perform the following:
Remediation / Resolution
To update your RDS instances connection configuration in order to restrict access, perform the following:
References
- AWS Documentation
- Amazon RDS FAQs
- Security in Amazon RDS
- Amazon RDS Security Groups
- Security Groups for Your VPC
- AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) Documentation
- rds
- describe-db-instances
- modify-db-instance
- describe-security-groups
- revoke-security-group-ingress
- authorize-security-group-ingress
Unlock the Remediation Steps
Gain free unlimited access
to our full Knowledge Base
Over 750 rules & best practices
for and
Get started for FREE
You are auditing:
RDS Publicly Accessible
Risk level: High