Block Public Access for EBS Snapshots provides an additional layer of security for Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) Snapshots and helps prevent unauthorized access and potential misuse of snapshot data. Starting today, you can manage Block Public Access for EBS Snapshots settings for your account using AWS CloudFormation templates.

AWS CloudFormation simplifies provisioning and management of resources on AWS. It allows you to track changes over time, apply updates in a controlled and automated manner, and include version controls so you can easily roll back changes if needed. You can use AWS CloudFormation templates to enable the Block Public Access setting in either the ‘block new sharing’ mode or the ‘block all sharing’ mode. When Block Public Access is enabled in either of the two modes, all future attempts to make an EBS snapshot public are automatically blocked. Additionally, with ‘block all sharing’ mode enabled, customers can prevent any existing public snapshots from being publicly accessed. You can also continue to manage Block Public Access for EBS Snapshots using the AWS Management Console, Command Line Interface (CLI), or API.

AWS CloudFormation support for Block Public Access for EBS Snapshots is available in all AWS commercial Regions and the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. For more information, see Block Public Access for EBS Snapshots resource type reference in the AWS CloudFormation User Guide.