Do I need to Encrypt EBS Snapshot when copying AMI to another availability zone?

Question

Hi I am an AWS newbie and I am moving an AMI instance from one availability zone to another, and I was wondering if I need to select the encrypt EBS Snapshot option when copying an AMI from say Oregon to Virginia.

If I don't encrypt the snapshot, does that mean any hacker can see what is in my AMI enroute from one availability zone to another?

Thanks

Answer 1

The option to encrypt an EBS Snapshot provides encryption-at-rest. This is to prevent someone with access to the underlying hardware, like an Amazon employee, from being able to read the information on the disk.

Your concern that someone could see the data as it is transmitted between regions is covered by encyption-in-motion. AWS will automatically use SSL encryption to ensure that the data being transmitted will not be readable by anyone.