About common controls

This page provides an overview and a partial list of the common controls available for the Control Catalog. You can get a complete list of common controls by calling the ListCommonControls API.

A common control is more granular than a control objective, but the common control is not limited to any particular implementation. In fact, a common control can be implemented in several different ways, by individual controls, that you can view and enable. Hierarchically, a common control is the parent of certain individual controls that you see in the Control Catalog.

Because common controls are free of implementation, they do not have a defined Behavior or Guidance. A common control may be implemented by various preventive, detective, or proactive controls, or a combination of these. Common controls cannot actually be enabled, only the implementations can be enabled.

Common controls and industry frameworks

Each common control can be mapped to several industry frameworks, because that common control can help you meet specific framework requirements. In the Control Catalog ontology, an industry framework is represented by the term Standard control, because the standard control represents a specific requirement of an industry standard.

View common controls

You can view each common control on a page in the console, and see a list of specific controls that implement the common control's functionality.

In the AWS Control Tower console, you can view the Common control field on the Control details page of a control. Each implemented control has a parent common control.

You can find the common control that is related to any specific control programmatically, by calling the GetControl or ListControls API.