Security and compliance

1. Authentication & Authorization with AWS Cognito

1.1. User Management & Authentication

AWS Cognito provides a centralized and secure identity layer for user registration, authentication, and session management.

Supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) and federated identities (Google, Facebook, SAML, and enterprise IdPs) to enable Single Sign-On (SSO) across applications.

User credentials and tokens are securely stored and managed by Cognito, reducing the surface area for security vulnerabilities in application code.

1.2. Authorization & Access Control

Fine-grained authorization is enforced through Cognito User Pools, Identity Pools, and AWS IAM policies.

Access tokens (JWT) issued by Cognito include claims that define the user's permissions and roles, enabling context-aware access control at the service layer.

Only authenticated and authorized users can view, modify, or share documents, ensuring strict enforcement of principle of least privilege.

Dynamic access rules can be applied at runtime, allowing flexible policy updates without redeploying services.

1.3. Integration with Backend Services

Backend APIs validate JWT tokens using Cognito's public keys (JWKS), ensuring all requests are cryptographically verified and tamper-proof.

Enables a zero-trust security model, where every request must be explicitly authenticated and authorized.

This approach provides scalability, centralized identity governance, and auditable traceability across all system components.

2. Data Encryption in Transit and at Rest

2.1. Encryption in Transit

All communication between clients, services, and data stores is encrypted using TLS 1.2+, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of data in motion.

Mutual authentication can be enforced between microservices using mTLS (Mutual TLS), adding an additional layer of trust and identity verification within the service mesh.

API Gateway and Application Load Balancers are configured to only accept secure connections (HTTPS), mitigating risks of eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks.

2.2. Encryption at Rest

Persistent data across all storage services—Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS (PostgreSQL), Amazon S3, and Amazon ElastiCache (Redis), is encrypted at rest.

Encryption keys are managed and rotated through AWS Key Management Service (KMS), ensuring centralized key control and auditability.

Each data store uses a combination of service-managed keys (SSE-S3, SSE-RDS) and customer-managed CMKs (Customer Managed Keys) when additional control or separation of duties is required.

Backups and snapshots are also encrypted by default, guaranteeing full protection of historical and recovery data.

2.3. Compliance and Monitoring

All encryption events and key usages are logged in AWS CloudTrail, providing an immutable audit trail for compliance and forensic analysis.

Continuous monitoring and alerting are implemented through AWS Security Hub and CloudWatch, detecting potential misconfigurations or unauthorized access attempts in real time.

These controls ensure end-to-end protection of sensitive information, aligning with best practices for data privacy, integrity, and regulatory compliance across the entire system lifecycle.