When the Pegasus Airlines breach occurred in May 2022, it reminded everyone that devastating data breaches can still happen even in the safest of cloud environments. Over 23 million people’s private information was leaked in the breach, and this was one of the most significant AWS breaches.
While AWS maintains high-quality security systems to protect customer data, the increasing complexity of cyberattacks today means that any data stored within AWS also needs external evaluation. To protect the data, a combined effort from both AWS and the customer is necessary.
Understanding this need, we must analyze every aspect of AWS’s security—from conducting a thorough AWS Security Audit and using the best security assessment tools to delegating an appropriate AWS security assessment checklist.
What is an AWS Security Assessment?
AWS Security Assessments evaluate the security measures and practices within an Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment and analyze a company’s AWS infrastructure by looking for misconfigurations, compliance violations, and insecure service deployments.
The assessment also tests the safety and strength of your security controls, including network access lists, encryption protocols, and IAM policies.
The testing company then provides useful findings and remediation techniques that you can use to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities before they are exploited.
Why is Astra Vulnerability Scanner the Best Scanner?
- We’re the only company that combines automated & manual pentest to create a one-of-a-kind pentest platform.
- Vetted scans ensure zero false positives.
- Our intelligent vulnerability scanner emulates hacker behavior & evolves with every pentest.
- Astra’s scanner helps you shift left by integrating with your CI/CD.
- Our platform helps you uncover, manage & fix vulnerabilities in one place.
- Trusted by the brands you trust like Agora, Spicejet, Muthoot, Dream11, etc.
Shared Responsibility Model
Both AWS and customers have a role in security. AWS is responsible for managing cloud security in the infrastructure, hardware, software, and networking of the cloud. This includes zero-day vulnerabilities and logic flaws that can be exploited at any step to disrupt the performance of an AWS server.
On the other hand, customers bear the responsibility for security in the cloud—managing data, encryption standards, and network configurations, among other tasks. This operates under a shared responsibility model between cloud providers and customers. Cloud providers are accountable for securing their infrastructure, while customers need to plan for the safety of their data and applications.
AWS Cloud Security Assessment Overview
AWS Cloud security relies on strict controls and ongoing monitoring to protect data integrity, confidentiality, and availability, and AWS is known to be a highly safe solution provider. However, while storing your data on AWS, you must employ security controls like identity management, data encryption, and threat detection to protect yourself further. By adhering to these security standards, you can also achieve compliance with ISO 27001, HIPAA, and FERPA.
Need for AWS Security Assessment
1. Identification of Vulnerabilities
Identifying and closely examining vulnerabilities in your AWS environment can protect your business from severe IT attacks and financial losses. Choose a security provider that scans for known CVEs and finds emerging zero-day exploits and subtle configuration drifts that can silently lead to cracks.
An example is that hackers could exploit even a seemingly minor change in an IAM policy or a forgotten security group rule.
2. Compliance Checks
With various regulatory frameworks in place, compliance is a crucial aspect of running any business. An AWS security assessment ensures your AWS infrastructure meets regulatory standards, helping you avoid potential fines and penalties.
It should be capable of assessing whether you can achieve compliance and providing a contextual view of your security posture relative to these frameworks.
3. Optimized IT Resources
With time, some operations or systems in your infrastructure might become outdated or inefficient, which is where right-sizing can be beneficial.
An assessment with advanced analysis is required to reduce unnecessary resources like underutilized Lambda functions or no longer used EBS volumes. The AWS security assessment provider can provide cost optimization reports to help with this.
4. Improved Security Posture
Ensuring you have web application firewalls and intrusion detection systems can help improve your overall security.
When AWS assessments simulate real-world attack scenarios and use threat modelling, you can use that analysis to find and fix any exposed endpoints and strengthen your defences.
5. Roadmap for Remedial Actions
With the right assessment provider, you will receive a detailed remedial action plan with exploitability or severity scores, highlighting the order in which you should tackle these problems.
Core Components of AWS Security Assessment
1. Vulnerability Discovery
A thorough assessment should go beyond surface-level checks, using specialized tools to scan your AWS environment. It should identify potential weaknesses in your configurations, applications, and network setups.
2. Prioritizing Threats
The next step involves analyzing the identified vulnerabilities and evaluating their potential impact on your business, particularly concerning sensitive data. The assessment company should consider possible data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage, not just in a generic context, but rather, they should apply their assessment results to your specific organization and its unique needs.
A vulnerability that isn’t damaging on its own could be devastating when combined with another. They should be able to predict these correlations.
3. Real-World Testing
A good security provider should have an ethical hacking team that simulates real-world attacks to evaluate your AWS environment’s resilience. This proactive approach reveals how your systems respond under pressure, identifying vulnerabilities that standard scans might miss.
4. Architectural Review
Astra’s experts dive into your AWS configuration, meticulously reviewing your security architecture. We check and recheck that you follow industry best practices and can leverage AWS security features.
5. Actionable Insights
Select a company that offers clear recommendations to strengthen your AWS security posture and provides specific insights into your industry/company type. No one answer fits all in security, and the customizability of insights you can use to better your security posture is the mark of a good assessment provider.
6. Controlling Access
Review user roles and permissions, identifying and eliminating unnecessary access rights. You should implement the principle of least privilege and only allow users the access they need. This minimizes the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.
7. Combatting Internal Risk
Insider threats can be just as damaging as external attacks, and this in turn makes assessing your internal security controls absolutely vital. A service provider should give you recommendations for reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches by internal employees.
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AWS Security Assessment Process
1. Policy and Risk Alignment
You should thoroughly examine your security policies, benchmark them against AWS best practices and pertinent industry standards (such as NIST or ISO 27001), and conduct comprehensive risk assessments.
Reason: To build a strong security foundation and identify possible gaps. This guarantees compliance and enables prioritization of remediation efforts based on the severity and likelihood of risks, helping to prevent potential data breaches and compliance violations.
2. Access Control
Thoroughly audit IAM roles and policies to uphold the principle of least privilege and configure and optimize AWS security services like AWS Shield, GuardDuty, and WAF.
Reason: To reduce the attack surface by limiting unnecessary access and to offer protection against external threats such as DDoS attacks, thus safeguarding sensitive data and ensuring system availability.
3. Proactive Testing and Monitoring
Perform simulated penetration tests to uncover vulnerabilities that standard scans may overlook, and analyze CloudTrail logs to identify anomalies and suspicious activity consistently.
Reason: To actively spot vulnerabilities in your defenses before hackers can exploit them while ensuring continued oversight of user activity and potential security incidents. This also aids in preventing data exfiltration.
4. Threat Mitigation
Review and refine your incident response plan to ensure that it is comprehensive and practical. Then, implement controls to mitigate internal threats, such as unauthorized access or data exfiltration.
Reason: To reduce the impact of security incidents, ensure prompt recovery, and mitigate the risk of insider threats while safeguarding critical business information.
5. Continuous Improvement and Training
You should use AWS Inspector and other vulnerability management tools to scan your system on an ongoing basis. We assess and improve security training programs to encourage a security-minded culture.
Reason: To maintain a strong security posture by continuously identifying and addressing vulnerabilities.
Best AWS Security Assessment Tools
1. Astra Security
Key Features:
- Platform: SaaS
- Pentest Capabilities: Continuous automated scans with manual tests
- Accuracy: Zero false positives
- Compliance Scanning: PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO27001, and SOC2
- Expert Remediation Assistance: Yes
- Workflow Integration: Slack, JIRA, GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, and more
- Price: Starting at $1999/yr
Astra combines our automated vulnerability scanner, which scans for 10,000+ test cases, including OWASP Top 10, SANS 25 vulnerabilities, and emerging vulnerabilities, with manual pentesting.
We guarantee zero false positives through our vetted scans and our intuitive vulnerability management dashboard helps you monitor vulnerabilities during the scanning process. Astra’s Pentest Platform is suitable for web app pentests, mobile app pentests, API pentests, and cloud configuration reviews.
2. AWS Inspector
Key Features:
- Platform: SaaS
- Pentest Capabilities: Automated security assessment service for EC2 instances
- Accuracy: Detection of vulnerabilities and security deviations
- Compliance Scanning: SOC, PCI, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and others
- Expert Remediation Assistance: No
- Workflow Integration: It integrates with other AWS services and tools
- Price: Pricing varies based on assessment type and frequency
Amazon Inspector is an automated security assessment tool from AWS that evaluates the network accessibility of EC2 instances. By identifying flaws and deviations from accepted practices, applications on the AWS platform enhance their security.
AWS Inspector leverages AWS’s security expertise by consistently updating its knowledge base with the latest security best practices and vulnerability descriptions. The pricing for this service depends on the type and frequency of the assessments.
3. AWS Security Hub
Key Features:
- Platform: SaaS
- Pentest Capabilities: Automated assessment
- Accuracy: Does not ensure zero false positives
- Compliance Scanning: PCI DSS, NIST, and more
- Expert Remediation Assistance: No
- Workflow Integration: AWS Management Console, Security Hub API, AWS CLI, AWS SDKs
- Price: Usage-based pricing for security checks
AWS Security Hub is a cloud security posture management (CSPM) service that delivers automatic and continuous security reviews for all your AWS resources. Identifying misconfigurations and consolidating security alerts in a standardized way streamlines security operations, making it more straightforward to analyze, improve, and address them.
It lets you compare your AWS environment with industry standards and best practices. Security Hub seamlessly integrates with AWS services and supported third-party solutions. The pricing for this service is based on usage.
Final Thoughts
While AWS implements stringent security measures, securing your cloud environment elicits shared responsibility. Conducting a practical AWS Security Assessment is necessary for identifying vulnerabilities, ensuring compliance, and optimizing your security posture.
This process involves comprehensive scanning, risk assessment, penetration testing, and continuous monitoring. Important aspects include aligning policies, managing access, conducting proactive tests, reducing internal risks, and fostering a security-aware culture through training.
Using tools such as Astra Security, AWS Inspector, and Security Hub enables you to maintain a robust defense against evolving cyber threats and helps you proactively address vulnerabilities.
FAQs
What does an AWS Security Assessment entail?
An AWS Security Assessment is a thorough examination of your AWS setup aimed at identifying potential vulnerabilities and breaches. It covers penetration testing, security architecture review, compliance checks, and several others.
What is an AWS Security Assessment Checklist?
An AWS Security Assessment Checklist is a practical guide for auditing and strengthening your AWS security configuration. It helps by listing actionable steps covering critical areas such as reviewing security policies, ensuring proper access controls, handling threat defense, and continuously monitoring for anomalies.
