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No Public S3 Buckets With Sensitive Data

ID: CTL.S3.PUBLIC.002 Category: Public Access Severity: Critical

What This Checks​

S3 buckets tagged with sensitive data classifications -- PHI, PII, or confidential -- must not allow any public access. This control fires when a bucket has public read or public list access enabled and carries a sensitive data_classification tag.

Why It Matters​

Public exposure of buckets containing regulated data triggers mandatory breach notification under HIPAA, GDPR, and state privacy laws. The combination of public access and sensitive data classification represents the highest-risk configuration: the data is both reachable and known to be regulated. Incident response timelines start from the moment of exposure, not the moment of discovery, so every hour counts.

What A Violation Looks Like​

$ stave apply --controls controls/s3 --observations ./observations --max-unsafe 0s --now 2026-01-15T00:00:00Z
{
  "control_id": "CTL.S3.PUBLIC.002",
  "control_name": "No Public S3 Buckets With Sensitive Data",
  "resource_id": "acme-healthcare-patient-records",
  "resource_type": "aws_s3_bucket",
  "resource_vendor": "aws",
  "evidence": {
    "first_unsafe_at": "2026-01-14T23:00:00Z",
    "last_seen_unsafe_at": "2026-01-15T00:00:00Z",
    "unsafe_duration_hours": 1,
    "threshold_hours": 0,
    "matched_properties": [
      {
        "path": "properties.storage.visibility.public_read",
        "value": true
      },
      {
        "path": "properties.storage.tags.data-classification",
        "value": "phi"
      }
    ],
    "why_now": "Resource has been unsafe for 1 hours (threshold: 0 hours). Unsafe since 2026-01-14T23:00:00Z."
  },
  "mitigation": {
    "description": "Bucket with sensitive data classification has public access enabled. Regulated data is exposed to the internet.",
    "action": "Immediately enable S3 Public Access Block (all four settings). Remove bucket policy statements granting access to Principal \"*\". Audit CloudTrail logs for unauthorized access during the exposure window."
  }
}

Correct Configuration​

A safe observation has no public access enabled and carries a sensitive data classification tag:

{
  "properties": {
    "storage": {
      "visibility": {
        "public_read": false,
        "public_list": false
      },
      "tags": {
        "data-classification": "phi"
      }
    }
  }
}
  • CTL.S3.PUBLIC.001 -- General check for public access on any bucket, regardless of data classification.
  • CTL.S3.PUBLIC.003 -- Checks for public write access, which is critical for any bucket but especially sensitive ones.
  • CTL.S3.CONTROLS.001 -- Ensures Public Access Block is fully enabled, providing defense-in-depth for sensitive buckets.