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IAM authentication should be configured for RDS clusters

Severity: Medium

Resource Types: AWS::RDS::DBCluster

Description​

This control checks whether an RDS DB cluster has IAM database authentication enabled.

IAM database authentication allows for password-free authentication to database instances. The authentication uses an authentication token. Network traffic to and from the database is encrypted using SSL.

Remediation​

You can enable IAM authentication for a DB cluster from the Amazon RDS console.

To enable IAM authentication for an existing DB cluster

  1. Open the Amazon RDS console.
  2. Choose Databases.
  3. Choose the DB cluster to modify.
  4. Choose Modify.
  5. Under Database options, select Enable IAM DB authentication.
  6. Choose Continue.
  7. Under Scheduling of modifications, choose when to apply modifications: Apply during the next scheduled maintenance window or Apply immediately.
  8. Choose Modify cluster.