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MEDIUMRDSReliability

RDS Deletion Protection Disabled

rds-deletion-protection-disabled

What this rule checks

Detects RDS instances without deletion protection.

How to fix it

  1. 1Enable deletion protection for production databases
  2. 2Use CloudFormation DeletionPolicy: Retain
FlaggedA standalone PostgreSQL instance is created without DeletionProtection, so the database can be destroyed by an accidental stack update or delete.
import { Stack, App } from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import { Construct } from 'constructs';
import * as rds from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-rds';

new rds.CfnDBInstance(this, 'Db', {
  engine: 'postgres',
  dbInstanceClass: 'db.t3.micro',
  allocatedStorage: '20',
});
FixedSetting DeletionProtection: true blocks accidental deletion until the flag is explicitly removed.
import { Stack, App } from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import { Construct } from 'constructs';
import * as rds from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-rds';

new rds.CfnDBInstance(this, 'Db', {
  engine: 'postgres',
  dbInstanceClass: 'db.t3.micro',
  allocatedStorage: '20',
  deletionProtection: true,
});

CDK Insights pinpoints the exact file and line in your CDK source for every finding, so you can jump straight to the fix.

Affected resource types

AWS::RDS::DBInstanceAWS::RDS::DBCluster

Compliance frameworks

SOC2HIPAANIST

AWS documentation

Read the AWS guidance

Intentional? Suppress this finding

Sometimes a flag is deliberate โ€” a genuinely public endpoint, say. You can dismiss rds-deletion-protection-disabled and the reason is kept in the report, not silently hidden.

In .cdk-insights.json:

{
  "ignoreRules": [
    { "id": "rds-deletion-protection-disabled", "reason": "Why this is intentional" }
  ]
}

Or inline in your CDK code:

Validations.of(scope).acknowledge({
  id: 'cdk-insights::rds-deletion-protection-disabled',
  reason: 'Why this is intentional',
});

Use the rule ID rds-deletion-protection-disabled shown above โ€” not the CDK-* ID from SARIF / GitHub code scanning. To dismiss every finding on one construct instead, use ignorePaths. Suppression docs โ†’

Catch this in your stack

$ npx cdk-insights scan

CDK Insights runs this and 118+ other rules locally against your synthesised CDK app โ€” free, no account, your code never leaves your machine.

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