Amazon OpenSearch Service controls - Amazon Security Hub
[Opensearch.1] OpenSearch domains should have encryption at rest enabled[Opensearch.2] OpenSearch domains should not be publicly accessible[Opensearch.3] OpenSearch domains should encrypt data sent between nodes[Opensearch.4] OpenSearch domain error logging to CloudWatch Logs should be enabled[Opensearch.5] OpenSearch domains should have audit logging enabled[Opensearch.6] OpenSearch domains should have at least three data nodes[Opensearch.7] OpenSearch domains should have fine-grained access control enabled[Opensearch.8] Connections to OpenSearch domains should be encrypted using the latest TLS security policy[Opensearch.9] OpenSearch domains should be tagged[Opensearch.10] OpenSearch domains should have the latest software update installed
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Amazon OpenSearch Service controls

These controls are related to OpenSearch Service resources.

These controls may not be available in all Amazon Web Services Regions. For more information, see Availability of controls by Region.

[Opensearch.1] OpenSearch domains should have encryption at rest enabled

Related requirements: PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.2.1, PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.3.1, PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.3.4, PCI DSS v3.2.1/7.2.1, NIST.800-53.r5 CA-9(1), NIST.800-53.r5 CM-3(6), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-13, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-28, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-28(1), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-7(6)

Category: Protect > Data protection > Encryption of data at rest

Severity: Medium

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-encrypted-at-rest

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters: None

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains have encryption-at-rest configuration enabled. The check fails if encryption at rest is not enabled.

For an added layer of security for sensitive data, you should configure your OpenSearch Service domain to be encrypted at rest. When you configure encryption of data at rest, Amazon KMS stores and manages your encryption keys. To perform the encryption, Amazon KMS uses the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm with 256-bit keys (AES-256).

To learn more about OpenSearch Service encryption at rest, see Encryption of data at rest for Amazon OpenSearch Service in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

Remediation

To enable encryption at rest for new and existing OpenSearch domains, see Enabling encryption of data at rest in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.2] OpenSearch domains should not be publicly accessible

Related requirements: PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.2.1, PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.3.1, PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.3.2, PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.3.4, PCI DSS v3.2.1/1.3.6, NIST.800-53.r5 AC-21, NIST.800-53.r5 AC-3, NIST.800-53.r5 AC-3(7), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-4, NIST.800-53.r5 AC-4(21), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-6, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(11), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(16), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(20), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(21), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(3), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(4), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(9)

Category: Protect > Secure network configuration > Resources within VPC

Severity: Critical

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-in-vpc-only

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters: None

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains are in a VPC. It does not evaluate the VPC subnet routing configuration to determine public access.

You should ensure that OpenSearch domains are not attached to public subnets. See Resource-based policies in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide. You should also ensure that your VPC is configured according to the recommended best practices. See Security best practices for your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

OpenSearch domains deployed within a VPC can communicate with VPC resources over the private Amazon network, without the need to traverse the public internet. This configuration increases the security posture by limiting access to the data in transit. VPCs provide a number of network controls to secure access to OpenSearch domains, including network ACL and security groups. Security Hub recommends that you migrate public OpenSearch domains to VPCs to take advantage of these controls.

Remediation

If you create a domain with a public endpoint, you cannot later place it within a VPC. Instead, you must create a new domain and migrate your data. The reverse is also true. If you create a domain within a VPC, it cannot have a public endpoint. Instead, you must either create another domain or disable this control.

For instructions, see Launching your Amazon OpenSearch Service domains within a VPC in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.3] OpenSearch domains should encrypt data sent between nodes

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 AC-4, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-13, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-23, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-23(3), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(4), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-8, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-8(1), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-8(2)

Category: Protect > Data protection > Encryption of data in transit

Severity: Medium

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-node-to-node-encryption-check

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters: None

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains have node-to-node encryption enabled. This control fails if node-to-node encryption is disabled on the domain.

HTTPS (TLS) can be used to help prevent potential attackers from eavesdropping on or manipulating network traffic using person-in-the-middle or similar attacks. Only encrypted connections over HTTPS (TLS) should be allowed. Enabling node-to-node encryption for OpenSearch domains ensures that intra-cluster communications are encrypted in transit.

There can be a performance penalty associated with this configuration. You should be aware of and test the performance trade-off before enabling this option.

Remediation

To enable node-to-node encryption on an OpenSearch domain, see Enabling node-to-node encryption in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.4] OpenSearch domain error logging to CloudWatch Logs should be enabled

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 AC-2(4), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-4(26), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-6(9), NIST.800-53.r5 AU-10, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-12, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-2, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-3, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-6(3), NIST.800-53.r5 AU-6(4), NIST.800-53.r5 CA-7, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(9), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-3(8), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-4(20), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-7(8)

Category: Identify > Logging

Severity: Medium

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-logs-to-cloudwatch

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters:

  • logtype = 'error' (not customizable)

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains are configured to send error logs to CloudWatch Logs. This control fails if error logging to CloudWatch is not enabled for a domain.

You should enable error logs for OpenSearch domains and send those logs to CloudWatch Logs for retention and response. Domain error logs can assist with security and access audits, and can help to diagnose availability issues.

Remediation

To enable log publishing, see Enabling log publishing (console) in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.5] OpenSearch domains should have audit logging enabled

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 AC-2(4), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-4(26), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-6(9), NIST.800-53.r5 AU-10, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-12, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-2, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-3, NIST.800-53.r5 AU-6(3), NIST.800-53.r5 AU-6(4), NIST.800-53.r5 CA-7, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(9), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-3(8), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-4(20), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-7(8)

Category: Identify > Logging

Severity: Medium

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-audit-logging-enabled

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters:

  • cloudWatchLogsLogGroupArnList (not customizable) – Security Hub does not populate this parameter. Comma-separated list of CloudWatch Logs log groups that should be configured for audit logs.

This rule is NON_COMPLIANT if the CloudWatch Logs log group of the OpenSearch domain is not specified in this parameter list.

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains have audit logging enabled. This control fails if an OpenSearch domain does not have audit logging enabled.

Audit logs are highly customizable. They allow you to track user activity on your OpenSearch clusters, including authentication successes and failures, requests to OpenSearch, index changes, and incoming search queries.

Remediation

For instructions on enabling audit logs, see Enabling audit logs in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.6] OpenSearch domains should have at least three data nodes

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 CP-10, NIST.800-53.r5 CP-6(2), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-36, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-5(2), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-13(5)

Category: Recover > Resilience > High availability

Severity: Medium

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-data-node-fault-tolerance

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters: None

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains are configured with at least three data nodes and zoneAwarenessEnabled is true. This control fails for an OpenSearch domain if instanceCount is less than 3 or zoneAwarenessEnabled is false.

An OpenSearch domain requires at least three data nodes for high availability and fault-tolerance. Deploying an OpenSearch domain with at least three data nodes ensures cluster operations if a node fails.

Remediation

To modify the number of data nodes in an OpenSearch domain

  1. Sign in to the Amazon console and open the Amazon OpenSearch Service console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/aos/.

  2. Under My domains, choose the name of the domain to edit, and choose Edit.

  3. Under Data nodes set Number of nodes to a number greater than 3. If you are deploying to three Availability Zones, set the number to a multiple of three to ensure equal distribution across Availability Zones.

  4. Choose Submit.

[Opensearch.7] OpenSearch domains should have fine-grained access control enabled

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 AC-2(1), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-3, NIST.800-53.r5 AC-3(15), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-3(7), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-5, NIST.800-53.r5 AC-6

Category: Protect > Secure Access Management > Sensitive API actions restricted

Severity: High

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-access-control-enabled

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters: None

This control checks whether OpenSearch domains have fine-grained access control enabled. The control fails if the fine-grained access control is not enabled. Fine-grained access control requires advanced-security-optionsin the OpenSearch parameter update-domain-config to be enabled.

Fine-grained access control offers additional ways of controlling access to your data on Amazon OpenSearch Service.

Remediation

To enable fine-grained access control, see Fine-grained access control in Amazon OpenSearch Service in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.8] Connections to OpenSearch domains should be encrypted using the latest TLS security policy

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 AC-17(2), NIST.800-53.r5 AC-4, NIST.800-53.r5 IA-5(1), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-12(3), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-13, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-23, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-23(3), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-7(4), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-8, NIST.800-53.r5 SC-8(1), NIST.800-53.r5 SC-8(2), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-7(6)

Category: Protect > Data protection > Encryption of data-in-transit

Severity: Medium

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-https-required

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters:

  • tlsPolicies: Policy-Min-TLS-1-2-PFS-2023-10 (not customizable)

This controls checks whether an Amazon OpenSearch Service domain endpoint is configured to use the latest TLS security policy. The control fails if the OpenSearch domain endpoint isn't configured to use the latest supported policy or if HTTPs isn't enabled.

HTTPS (TLS) can be used to help prevent potential attackers from using person-in-the-middle or similar attacks to eavesdrop on or manipulate network traffic. Only encrypted connections over HTTPS (TLS) should be allowed. Encrypting data in transit can affect performance. You should test your application with this feature to understand the performance profile and the impact of TLS. TLS 1.2 provides several security enhancements over previous versions of TLS.

Remediation

To enable TLS encryption, use the UpdateDomainConfig API operation. Configure the DomainEndpointOptions field to set the TLSSecurityPolicy. For more information, see Node-to-node encryption in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.9] OpenSearch domains should be tagged

Category: Identify > Inventory > Tagging

Severity: Low

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: tagged-opensearch-domain (custom Security Hub rule)

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters:

Parameter Description Type Allowed custom values Security Hub default value
requiredTagKeys List of non-system tag keys that the evaluated resource must contain. Tag keys are case sensitive. StringList List of tags that meet Amazon requirements No default value

This control checks whether an Amazon OpenSearch Service domain has tags with the specific keys defined in the parameter requiredTagKeys. The control fails if the domain doesn’t have any tag keys or if it doesn’t have all the keys specified in the parameter requiredTagKeys. If the parameter requiredTagKeys isn't provided, the control only checks for the existence of a tag key and fails if the domain isn't tagged with any key. System tags, which are automatically applied and begin with aws:, are ignored.

A tag is a label that you assign to an Amazon resource, and it consists of a key and an optional value. You can create tags to categorize resources by purpose, owner, environment, or other criteria. Tags can help you identify, organize, search for, and filter resources. Tagging also helps you track accountable resource owners for actions and notifications. When you use tagging, you can implement attribute-based access control (ABAC) as an authorization strategy, which defines permissions based on tags. You can attach tags to IAM entities (users or roles) and to Amazon resources. You can create a single ABAC policy or a separate set of policies for your IAM principals. You can design these ABAC policies to allow operations when the principal's tag matches the resource tag. For more information, see What is ABAC for Amazon? in the IAM User Guide.

Note

Don’t add personally identifiable information (PII) or other confidential or sensitive information in tags. Tags are accessible to many Amazon Web Services, including Amazon Billing. For more tagging best practices, see Tagging your Amazon resources in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Remediation

To add tags to an OpenSearch Service domain, see Working with tags in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.

[Opensearch.10] OpenSearch domains should have the latest software update installed

Related requirements: NIST.800-53.r5 SI-2, NIST.800-53.r5 SI-2(2), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-2(4), NIST.800-53.r5 SI-2(5)

Category: Detect > Vulnerability, patch, and version management

Severity: Low

Resource type: AWS::OpenSearch::Domain

Amazon Config rule: opensearch-update-check

Schedule type: Change triggered

Parameters: None

This control checks whether an Amazon OpenSearch Service domain has the latest software update installed. The control fails if a software update is available but not installed for the domain.

OpenSearch Service software updates provide the latest platform fixes, updates, and features available for the environment. Keeping up-to-date with patch installation helps maintain domain security and availability. If no action is taken on required updates, the service software is updated automatically (typically after 2 weeks). We recommend scheduling updates during a time of low traffic to the domain to minimize service disruption.

Remediation

To install software updates for an OpenSearch domain, see Starting an update in the Amazon OpenSearch Service Developer Guide.