What AWS DLP means
AWS DLP is the application of data loss prevention practices to data that lives in or moves through Amazon Web Services. It is a platform-specific part of the wider cloud DLP discipline, so the same questions apply: what is sensitive, where it sits, and how it leaves.
The most common mistake is to treat AWS as one place. Storage, processing, and transfers are separate, and a control that covers one of them rarely covers the others.
Where AWS data lives
The three states of data need different controls. For data at rest, protection starts with finding where sensitive data sits, classifying it, and limiting who can reach it. Data in use is the state most often left out, because it sits on people's machines rather than in the cloud console.
Each state below has its own exposure, so a policy written for one does not cover the others.
| State | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Data at rest | Objects in S3 buckets, EC2 volumes, managed databases, snapshots, backups |
| Data in motion | Traffic between cloud workloads and the outside world: API calls, replication, uploads |
| Data in use | Data handled by people on cloud desktops or corporate workstations |
Shared responsibility
Under the AWS shared-responsibility model, AWS secures the infrastructure. The customer stays responsible for data, access rights, and configuration.
Most AWS data-exposure incidents trace back to the customer side: storage left publicly readable, over-permissive credentials, or users moving data to unapproved locations. The last case is the one native controls see least, which is why data leaks need controls that reach past the cloud console.
Where inspection happens
Organizations often combine three models. Native AWS capabilities govern storage, network inspection watches outbound traffic, and endpoint data loss prevention reads the files on the workstation where people use them.
Network inspection is strong on outbound traffic but blind to encrypted transfers, and endpoint inspection needs an agent on each machine. Neither replaces the other.
| Capability | Native AWS controls | Network inspection | Endpoint inspection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governs bucket access and configuration | |||
| Inspects outbound traffic from the network | |||
| Reads file content before encryption | |||
| Sees USB, printing, and clipboard use |
Typical scenarios
The scenarios below combine cloud-side misconfiguration with transfers that users make. Each one is a form of data exfiltration, whether deliberate or not. Only the user-side cases reach the workstation, so the first two need cloud-side controls.
- A misconfigured S3 bucket left world-readable.
- Stolen credentials used to extract stored data at scale.
- An employee copying files from an AWS-hosted application to personal cloud storage, a messenger, or a USB drive.
- A departing insider bulk-archiving documents before leaving, the pattern that insider threat programs watch for.
What it looks like in Anexet
The Anexet console lists cloud storage services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive, so administrators can set access, audit, and shadow copy rules for each one.
Content rules work on the same principle. The HTTP blocking condition can test text for bank card numbers or a regular expression, which is content-aware blocking in practice.
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Setting up coverage
Coverage for AWS-related data is built in the same order as any DLP program: define what must stay inside, set the rules, then review the evidence.
- 1
List the AWS-hosted data
Identify which buckets, databases, and applications hold data that must not leave, and who uses them.
- 2
Classify what matters
Mark the data by sensitivity, so policies can tell a routine export from a leak.
- 3
Set user-side rules
Choose which channels to watch and block, starting with cloud storage, messengers, and removable media.
- 4
Review the audit trail
Check the recorded events every week and tune rules that block legitimate work.
Where to start
Start with the data that would hurt most if it left, then with the channels people actually use to move it. Rules written for every file at once end up blocking ordinary work, and they get switched off.
For the endpoint side of this coverage, see Anexet DLP.
Further reading: How to buy the DLP system?.
Many AWS leaks start on a laptop, with one upload that looked ordinary.
Anexet TeamHow Anexet handles this
Anexet does not scan AWS infrastructure. It has no module that reads S3 buckets or EC2 volumes, and it does not deploy into AWS. Its coverage of AWS-related data comes from the workstations where people move that data, with the central server kept on premises.
Endpoint coverage complements, rather than replaces, AWS-native controls for data at rest: bucket policies and configuration management govern storage, while the endpoint governs the user-driven transfers those controls never see.
Visibility at the point of use. The Anexet agent inspects content on the workstation before it is encrypted for transit: uploads to web versions of cloud storage services, email, messengers, removable devices, printing, and clipboard use.
Content-based detection. Transfers are checked against security thesauri (dictionaries), hash banks for exact-file matches, digital fingerprints, and sensitivity-label conditions, so a transfer is judged by what it contains.
Blocking enforcement. Rules can block the transfer, send the item to quarantine for review, log it, or raise an alert, depending on severity.
Audit trail. Each event is recorded with user, time, channel, content classification, and the action taken.
On-premise processing. Classification databases, captured content, and logs stay inside the organization's own infrastructure.
Anexet DLP
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