Question

Difficulty: EasyData Encryption and Key Management

A company's security policy requires that all Customer Managed Keys (CMKs) in AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) used for encrypting database backups must be rotated annually. Additionally, all historical database backups must remain decryptable without administrative effort.

Which actions should a solutions architect recommend to meet these security requirements? (Select TWO.)

  1. Enable automatic key rotation for the Customer Managed Key in AWS KMS.Answer
  2. Retain the older key material, as AWS KMS automatically manages the mapping of older key versions to decrypt historical backups.Answer
  3. C
    Manually create a new Customer Managed Key each year and re-encrypt all historical database backups with the new key.
  4. D
    Disable the older versions of the Customer Managed Key after rotation to prevent unauthorized decryption of historical backups.
  5. E
    Store the decryption keys as plaintext String parameters in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store for easy access by the backup utility.

Answer

Enable automatic key rotation for the Customer Managed Key in AWS KMS and retain the older key material, as AWS KMS automatically manages the mapping of older key versions to decrypt historical backups.
To meet the requirements, the solutions architect should enable automatic key rotation for the Customer Managed Key in AWS KMS, which rotates the key material automatically on an annual schedule. Additionally, the older key material must be retained because AWS KMS automatically tracks and uses the correct historical key material version to decrypt older backups, eliminating the need for administrative effort or manual data re-encryption.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Enable automatic key rotation on the Customer Managed Key.
AWS KMS will automatically rotate the backing key material every year.
To satisfy the requirement of rotating the key material annually without manual overhead.
2
Retain older key material and let AWS KMS handle decryption.
AWS KMS maintains the metadata mapping older ciphertexts to the corresponding older key versions.
To satisfy the requirement that historical backups remain decryptable without administrative effort or data re-encryption.

Key Concept

AWS KMS automatic key rotation generates new key material annually for Customer Managed Keys while retaining old key material to automatically decrypt older data without requiring manual data re-encryption.
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