Guardrail
Compliance & GovernanceA Guardrail is a security boundary that prevents or detects actions that violate your organization's security policies. Unlike permissions that grant access, guardrails restrict what is possible - even for administrators.
Guardrail Types
- Preventive: SCPs that block actions before they happen (e.g., deny launching instances without encryption)
- Detective: AWS Config rules that flag non-compliant resources after the fact
- Proactive: CloudFormation hooks or Service Catalog constraints that validate before deployment
Related AWS Services
Related Terms
An organization-wide guardrail that restricts what actions member accounts can perform, regardless of their IAM policies.
Meeting regulatory requirements and industry standards (SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, CIS) for data protection, access control, and security practices in the cloud.
Using multiple AWS accounts to isolate workloads, environments, and teams, providing the strongest security boundary available in AWS.
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