AWS Opens Top Secret Region for US Government

AWS Launches Second ‘Top Secret’ Region for U.S. Government

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing division of Amazon, has unveiled a new, highly secure region tailored for use by the United States government. This marks the second such region established by Amazon, expanding its capacity to handle classified data.

Expanding Geographic Coverage for Sensitive Data

Currently, Amazon operates “top secret” regions on both the eastern and western coasts of the United States. This expansion provides increased redundancy and resilience for government workloads.

According to a blog post by Amazon’s Max Peterson, “AWS Top Secret-West is accredited to operate workloads at the Top Secret U.S. security classification level.” The new region incorporates multiple Availability Zones, physically separated from the existing AWS Top Secret-East region.

Addressing Unique Government Requirements

AWS acknowledges the distinct needs of its government clientele. Unlike standard cloud environments, these customers require a dedicated infrastructure to ensure complete isolation and robust security.

These specialized regions are specifically engineered to deliver the necessary level of protection for sensitive government operations. Peterson stated that “AWS is committed to helping our customers and partners in the defense, intelligence and national security communities deliver their most critical missions.”

Demonstrating Capabilities and Future Readiness

The existence of these top secret regions served as a key demonstration of Amazon’s capabilities during the competition for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract with Microsoft.

Although the JEDI contract was ultimately cancelled following legal challenges, this development underscores Amazon’s preparedness to manage highly sensitive data, including information originating from the Department of Defense (DoD).

Compliance and Certification

The new AWS Top Secret-West region allows government clients to distribute their workloads across different geographic locations and Availability Zones for enhanced resilience.

This zone has received certification from several government bodies, confirming its adherence to stringent security standards. These include Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Intelligence Community Directive (ICD 503) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-53 Revision 4.

This ensures the region meets the rigorous security requirements of its intended users.