Understanding and Resolving Control Tower Drift

AWS Control Tower provides guardrails and governance for multi-account AWS environments. However, drift can occur when resources are modified outside of Control Tower’s managed processes. Understanding and resolving drift is crucial for maintaining compliance and security posture.

What is Control Tower Drift?

Control Tower drift occurs when the actual state of your AWS environment diverges from the baseline configuration established by Control Tower. This can happen through:

  • Manual changes in the AWS Console
  • CloudFormation stack modifications
  • Organizational unit (OU) restructuring
  • Account configuration changes

Key Topics Covered

  • Identifying Drift: How to detect when your environment has drifted
  • Common Causes: Understanding what triggers drift in Control Tower
  • Resolution Strategies: Step-by-step approaches to remediate drift
  • Prevention Methods: Best practices to avoid drift in the future
  • Automation: Using tools and scripts to maintain compliance

Why It Matters

Unresolved drift can lead to:

  • Compliance violations
  • Security gaps
  • Inconsistent configurations across accounts
  • Failed deployments and updates

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This article was originally published on AWS Builder.

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