How can a company ensure that data stored in AWS is encrypted at rest?

Enabling server-side encryption in Amazon S3 is a direct and effective method for ensuring that data stored in AWS is encrypted at rest. When server-side encryption is enabled for an S3 bucket, AWS automatically encrypts the objects as they are written to the storage and decrypts them when they are accessed. This process is seamless to users and applications, meaning they do not have to handle the encryption and decryption themselves, reducing the complexity of managing encryption.

Server-side encryption in S3 supports multiple encryption methods, including SSE-S3 (which uses AWS managed keys), SSE-KMS (which utilizes AWS Key Management Service for more control over keys), and SSE-C (customer-provided keys). This gives companies flexibility in how they manage data security and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Other options like network encryption, application-level encryption, and restricting access to S3 buckets can contribute to a broader security strategy, but they do not specifically focus on the requirement of encrypting data at rest. Network encryption relates to data in transit, while application-level encryption requires changes to the application code and can complicate management. Restricting access to buckets deals with data access control rather than encryption, meaning it does not provide a solution for encrypting data once it is stored in