Why Amazon S3 server side encryption (SSE-S3) is misleading

Re:Why Amazon S3 server side encryption (SSE-S3) is misleading by aborsy on Monday January 16, 2023 @03:01PM (#34404833)

AWS has access to the AWS-managed SSE-KMS keys, since AWS manages those keys on behalf of customers.

I am wondering if AWS has access to data encrypted with the SSE-CMK keys as well?

They state that the SSE-CMK keys reside in tamper-proof FIPS-validated HSMs and not even Amazon has access to them. But it’s a bit misleading because they use envelope encryption. Furthermore, the encryption and decryption are still server side.

They could have better phrased it that, the only advantage of the SSE-CMK keys over SSE-KMS keys is that, with former, the users can define key policies (providing another access control layer similar to IAM) and monitor usage.

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Re:Why Amazon S3 server side encryption (SSE-S3) is misleading by daitya on Monday January 16, 2023 @03:07PM (#34404903)

Author here. Technically, they can. HOWEVER if this threat is part of a customer's risk profile, i.e., they cannot risk even a possibility of AWS having access to their data, then use client side encryption.

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