Skip to main content

How to Find Unencrypted AWS EC2 Volumes

Data encryption at rest prevents data visibility in the event of its unauthorized access or theft.

info

This security check is part of the CIS Amazon Web Services Benchmarks and is rated severity medium.

Prerequisites​

This guide assumes that you have already installed and configured Fix Inventory to collect your AWS resources.

Directions​

  1. Execute the following search command in Fix Inventory Shell:

    > search is(aws_ec2_volume) and volume_encrypted=false
    ​kind=aws_ec2_volume, ..., region=fixinventory-poweruser
    ​kind=aws_ec2_volume, ..., account=poweruser-team

  2. Pipe the search command into the dump command:

    > search is(aws_ec2_volume) and volume_encrypted=false | dump
    ​reported:
    ​  id: /aws/ec2/123
    ​  name: some-name
    ​  ctime: '2022-12-05T22:53:14Z'
    ​  kind: aws_ec2_volume
    ​  age: 2mo28d

    The command output will list the details of all non-compliant aws_ec2_volume resources.

Remediation​

  • Encrypt all EBS volumes.
  • Enable Encryption by default.
  • You can configure your AWS account to enforce the encryption of the new EBS volumes and snapshot copies that you create. For example, Amazon EBS encrypts the EBS volumes created when you launch an instance and the snapshots that you copy from an unencrypted snapshot.
note

Please refer to the AWS EC2 documentation for details.

Further Reading​