AWS PII Exposure Remediation

Learn how to fix PII exposure in AWS environments. Follow step-by-step guidance for GDPR compliance and automated remediation.

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GDPR

aws

Why It Matters

The core goal is to rapidly remediate PII exposures across your AWS environment before they lead to regulatory violations or data breaches. Fixing PII exposure in AWS requires systematic identification of misconfigured resources, implementation of proper access controls, and ongoing monitoring to prevent future incidents. This is critical for organizations subject to GDPR, as exposed PII can result in substantial fines and reputational damage.

Primary Risk: Unrestricted public access to personally identifiable information

Relevant Regulation: GDPR Data Protection Regulation

A comprehensive remediation approach delivers immediate risk reduction while establishing automated controls to prevent future exposures.

Prerequisites

Permissions & Roles

  • AWS administrative access or PowerUser role
  • S3:GetBucketPolicy, S3:PutBucketPolicy privileges
  • IAM:AttachRolePolicy, IAM:CreateRole permissions

External Tools

  • AWS CLI v2
  • Cyera DSPM account
  • CloudFormation or Terraform

Prior Setup

  • AWS Config enabled
  • CloudTrail logging active
  • VPC and security groups configured
  • SNS topics for alerting

Introducing Cyera

Cyera is a modern Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform that discovers, classifies, and continuously monitors your sensitive data across cloud services. Using advanced AI and Natural Language Processing (NER) models, Cyera automatically identifies PII patterns in unstructured data, prioritizes exposures by risk severity, and provides automated remediation workflows to quickly secure your AWS environment while maintaining GDPR compliance.

Step-by-Step Guide

1
Assess current PII exposures

Use Cyera's discovery engine to scan S3 buckets, RDS instances, and other AWS services. Review the exposure dashboard to prioritize publicly accessible resources containing PII.

aws s3api get-bucket-acl --bucket your-bucket-name

2
Implement immediate containment

For critical exposures, immediately enable S3 Block Public Access, revoke overly permissive IAM policies, and update security groups to restrict unauthorized access.

3
Deploy automated remediation

Configure AWS Config rules with Lambda functions to automatically remediate common misconfigurations. Set up CloudWatch Events to trigger remediation workflows when new exposures are detected.

4
Establish continuous monitoring

Enable Cyera's continuous monitoring to detect new PII exposures in real-time. Configure alerts for high-risk findings and integrate with your incident response procedures.

Architecture & Workflow

AWS Config

Monitors resource configurations and compliance

Cyera Scanner

Identifies and classifies PII across AWS services

Lambda Functions

Executes automated remediation actions

CloudWatch Events

Triggers workflows and sends notifications

Remediation Flow Summary

Detect Exposure → Assess Risk → Execute Remediation → Verify & Monitor

Best Practices & Tips

Remediation Prioritization

  • Address public S3 buckets with PII first
  • Focus on high-volume data exposures
  • Prioritize by data sensitivity classification

Automation Strategy

  • Use least-privilege IAM policies
  • Implement gradual rollout for remediation
  • Test remediation actions in non-prod first

Common Pitfalls

  • Breaking application functionality with overly restrictive policies
  • Not documenting remediation actions for audit trails
  • Forgetting to encrypt data at rest after fixing access

References & Further Reading

Next Steps

🔒 Prevent: Implement preventive controls for PII exposure 🔍 Detect: Set up continuous PII discovery and monitoring