Aurora/RDS cluster has automated backups disabled
- Severity
- Medium
- Service
- RDS
- Check ID
- RDS_CLUSTER_BACKUP_DISABLED
What this check finds
The DB cluster has a BackupRetentionPeriod of 0, so no automated backups are taken and point-in-time recovery is unavailable. A failure, corruption, or accidental deletion would result in permanent data loss.
Passing looks like: Aurora/RDS cluster automated backups enabled.
How to fix it
Set a backup retention period of at least 7 days.
AWS CLI
aws rds modify-db-cluster --db-cluster-identifier CLUSTER_ID --backup-retention-period 7 --apply-immediately
Names in capitals are placeholders for your own resource. Review a command before you run it.
AWS console
RDS → Databases → select cluster → Modify → Backup retention period.
Compliance controls it is evidence for
A failing result counts against these controls in KloudLytics; a passing one is evidence towards them. How compliance mapping works
| Framework | Controls |
|---|---|
| HIPAA Security Rule |
|
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev5 (Moderate) |
|
| NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 |
|
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A |
|
Checked on every scan
KloudLytics runs this check each time it scans a connected AWS account, through a read-only role, and lists every affected resource with its region. On Pro and Business a fix is written for the specific resource rather than the general case above. The exact access it needs
More RDS checks
- HighAurora/RDS cluster storage is not encrypted at rest
- HighRDS automated backups are disabled
- HighRDS instance does not have automatic minor version upgrades enabled
- HighRDS instance has zero database connections for 7 days
- HighRDS instance storage is not encrypted at rest
- HighRDS security group allows broad CIDR ingress (broader than /16)
- HighRDS snapshot is public
- MediumNo RDS event subscription configured for this account