Control: 6 MSK clusters should disable unauthenticated access
Description
This control checks whether unauthenticated access is enabled for an Amazon MSK cluster. The control fails if unauthenticated access is enabled for the MSK cluster.
Amazon MSK supports client authentication and authorization mechanisms to control access to a cluster. These mechanisms verify the identity of clients connecting to the cluster and determine which actions clients can perform. An MSK cluster can be configured to allow unauthenticated access, which allows any client with network connectivity to publish and subscribe to Kafka topics without providing credentials. Running an MSK cluster without requiring authentication violates the principle of least privilege and can expose the cluster to unauthorized access. It can allow any client to access, modify, or delete data in Kafka topics, potentially resulting in data breaches, unauthorized data modifications, or service disruptions. We recommend enabling authentication mechanisms such as IAM authentication, SASL/SCRAM, or mutual TLS to ensure proper access control and maintain security compliance.
Remediation
For information about changing the authentication settings for an Amazon MSK cluster, see the following sections of the Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka Developer Guide: Update security settings of an Amazon MSK cluster and Authentication and authorization for Apache Kafka APIs.
Usage
Run the control in your terminal:
powerpipe control run aws_compliance.control.foundational_security_msk_6Snapshot and share results via Turbot Pipes:
powerpipe loginpowerpipe control run aws_compliance.control.foundational_security_msk_6 --shareSQL
This control uses a named query:
select arn as resource, case when not (provisioned -> 'ClientAuthentication' -> 'Unauthenticated' -> 'Enabled')::bool then 'ok' else 'alarm' end as status, case when not (provisioned -> 'ClientAuthentication' -> 'Unauthenticated' -> 'Enabled')::bool then title || ' unauthenticated access disabled.' else title || ' unauthenticated access enabled.' end as reason , region, account_idfrom aws_msk_cluster;