Automate Continuous Compliance with AWS Config Conformance Packs

AWS Config Conformance Packs are a set of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be easily deployed as a single entity. These packs help you manage compliance at scale by ensuring that your AWS resources comply with predefined sets of best practices and regulatory requirements.

A conformance pack is essentially a collection of AWS Config rules. Each rule represents a desired configuration state for a specific AWS resource, such as ensuring that S3 buckets are not publicly accessible or that IAM policies do not allow administrator permissions.

Instead of creating and managing individual AWS Config rules, you can deploy a conformance pack that includes multiple rules tailored to specific compliance standards or best practices.

Conformance packs help you track compliance across your AWS environment. You can see which resources are non-compliant and take action to bring them into compliance.

AWS provides predefined conformance pack templates for various compliance standards, such as CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark, PCI-DSS, NIST, and more. You can also create custom conformance packs based on your specific requirements.

Conformance packs can include automatic remediation actions that AWS Config will take when a rule is violated. This helps correct non-compliant resources quickly.

How it works:

1. Setup AWS Config

2. Deploy Conformance Pack

3. Monitor Compliance

4. Remediate Non-Compliance Resources

Use Case:

Suppose your organization needs to comply with the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark. Instead of setting up each rule manually, you can deploy the CIS AWS Foundations conformance pack, which includes all necessary rules and remediation actions. AWS Config will then monitor your resources and provide compliance reports, making it easier to manage and maintain compliance.

Deploy HIPPA Conformance pack from the AWS console:

1. Login to your AWS console

2. Select AWS Config

3. Click on Conformance packs on the left panel

4. Select Deploy conformance pack

5. Select HIPPA (Or any required template) from the sample list

6. Select a name your conformance pack

7. Review and deploy the conformance pack

After deploying the conformance pack, AWS Config adds all the related rules for that template and evaluates the rules. When deployment status changes to complete, you can see the compliance score on the dashboard. The compliance score is calculated by the number of compliant resources over the total number of possible combinations.

Next, you can select the package to see all the compliant and non-compliant rules and related resources and take necessary remediation actions.