Ensure HIPAA Compliance: Achieving Complete End-to-End Encryption for Your EC2 Instances
Question
Your company is planning on hosting an application on a set of EC2 Instances.
There is a requirement for complete end to end encryption for the data to ensure that the application is (HIPAA) compliant.
How can you achieve this?
Answers
Explanations
Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer
A. B. C. D.Answer - D.
Since the data needs to be encrypted end to end, use an SSL certificate which can be mapped to the application.
Option A is incorrect because this can be used to encrypt data at rest.
Option B is incorrect because we need a full VPN connection and not just the virtual gateway alone.
Option C is incorrect because this is not a feasible option for this scenario.
Below is an example on how to use SSL with an Apache Instance on EC2
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/SSL-on-an-instance.htmlOption A is incorrect because KMS (Key Management Service) is a service that helps you create and manage encryption keys that can be used with other AWS services and applications, but it does not provide end-to-end encryption for data transmitted between EC2 instances and external systems.
Option B is also incorrect because a virtual gateway is used to establish a secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection between your on-premises infrastructure and your Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud), but it does not provide end-to-end encryption for data transmitted between EC2 instances and external systems.
Option C is also incorrect because Direct Connect is a dedicated network connection between your on-premises infrastructure and your Amazon VPC, but it does not provide end-to-end encryption for data transmitted between EC2 instances and external systems.
Option D is the correct answer because using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or its successor, TLS (Transport Layer Security), can provide end-to-end encryption for data transmitted between EC2 instances and external systems. By using SSL or TLS, all data transmitted between the client and the server is encrypted at the transport layer, ensuring that it cannot be intercepted or modified by unauthorized parties. This can help you comply with HIPAA regulations that require end-to-end encryption for protected health information (PHI) transmitted over the internet.
In summary, the correct answer is D, which is to use SSL/TLS to encrypt all data at the transport layer.
