Recently, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that its AWS Backup service has now the capability to create legal holds on data in order to address regulatory data preservation needs. The feature was added since AWS customers — particularly those in regulated industries — had the need for centralized protection and demonstrable compliance for their application data.
The feature adds a persistent hold/lock on the backup and is applied at the recovery point level. As a result, users will need to have recovery points already created in order to take advantage of legal holds. A legal hold will also remain active until an authorized user removes it.
When a legal hold is applied on a recovery point, the following applies:
- The deletion of a recovery point cannot be done through console, command-line interface (CLI) or API
- Transition to deletion will be blocked, although lifecycle transitions to cold storage will proceed as expected
- Any alterations or modifications of recovery points will not have any effect until the legal hold is removed
- The inability to dissociate a recovery point from AWS Backup and release control to the source service
By using legal holds, users can suspend the normal disposition of data backups without having to worry about the expiration date set in the backup lifecycle policy. In addition, legal holds also allow users immutable data storage, retention, and preservation until someone releases the holds. This feature is important for customers who need to fulfill data retention responsibilities in highly regulated industries.
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Source: AWS