AWS Security Assessment
Comprehensive AWS security posture review covering IAM, S3, EC2, VPC, and compliance.
AWS Security Assessment
AWS provides the building blocks for secure cloud architecture, but securing an AWS environment requires deliberate configuration across hundreds of services — and the default settings for many of them are deliberately permissive. IAM policies that grant excessive permissions, S3 buckets with public access enabled, security groups with open ingress rules, and CloudTrail logging that is incomplete or disabled are among the most consistently exploited cloud misconfigurations. Intelliroot's AWS Security Assessment delivers a comprehensive review of your AWS security posture — covering IAM, networking, storage, compute, logging, and account-level controls — aligned to the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark and AWS Well-Architected Security Pillar.
Our CREST-certified team uses a combination of automated tooling (Prowler, ScoutSuite, Steampipe) and manual expert analysis to identify real attack paths and misconfiguration patterns that automated scanners miss. Where authorised, we can also conduct active IAM privilege escalation testing using PACU to validate the real-world exploitability of identified misconfigurations, giving you a true picture of your AWS risk exposure.
Why AWS Security Assessment Is Essential
IAM Is the Crown Jewel — and the Most Common Weakness
Overprivileged IAM roles, inline policies with wildcard actions, and trust relationships that allow role assumption across accounts are consistently the highest-impact findings in AWS environments — and the hardest to detect without expert analysis.
S3 Bucket Exposure Causes Breaches Daily
Public S3 buckets, buckets with overly permissive bucket policies, and S3 Access Points without proper controls continue to expose sensitive data — from customer PII to internal credentials — at scale across organisations of all sizes.
Logging Gaps Create Blind Spots
Incomplete CloudTrail coverage, GuardDuty disabled in some regions, and S3 access logging not enabled leave organisations unable to detect or investigate breaches. You cannot respond to what you cannot see.
Multi-Account Complexity Hides Risk
AWS Organisations with dozens of accounts, complex SCPs, and cross-account role assumptions create security complexity that is impossible to manage without systematic assessment. A misconfigured trust relationship in one account can compromise the entire organisation.
What We Assess
IAM & Access Controls
- IAM policy analysis (inline, managed, resource-based)
- Privilege escalation path identification
- Root account usage and MFA enforcement
- IAM Access Analyser configuration review
- Cross-account trust relationships and assume-role chains
Storage & Data Security
- S3 bucket public access settings and bucket policies
- S3 server-side encryption and key management
- RDS encryption-at-rest and in-transit
- EBS volume and snapshot encryption
- Secrets Manager vs. plaintext credential usage
Networking & Compute
- VPC security group and NACL review
- Internet Gateway and NAT Gateway configuration
- EC2 IMDSv2 enforcement (SSRF protection)
- Lambda function permissions and environment variables
- EKS and ECS security configuration
Logging, Detection & Compliance
- CloudTrail multi-region and log file validation
- GuardDuty enablement and finding review
- AWS Config rules and compliance posture
- Security Hub findings aggregation review
- CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark compliance mapping
Our Assessment Approach
Scoping & Account Inventory
Enumerate all AWS accounts in scope, identify regions in use, and agree on access approach — typically a read-only IAM role with SecurityAudit and ViewOnlyAccess managed policies. Define whether active IAM privilege escalation testing using PACU is in scope and establish rules of engagement.
Automated Benchmark Assessment
Execute Prowler and ScoutSuite across all in-scope accounts and regions to establish a CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark compliance baseline. Run Steampipe with the AWS Compliance mod for additional control coverage. Triage and deduplicate findings to remove false positives before manual analysis.
IAM Deep Dive & Privilege Escalation Analysis
Manually analyse IAM policies, trust relationships, and permission boundaries to identify privilege escalation paths and overpermissioning. Where authorised, use PACU to actively validate IAM escalation vectors in a controlled manner.
Network, Storage & Logging Review
Assess VPC configurations, security groups, S3 bucket policies, encryption settings, and logging coverage. Identify gaps in CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and AWS Config that would leave the environment blind to attacker activity.
Risk-Rated Reporting & CIS Scorecard
Deliver a risk-rated findings report with attack path narratives, a CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark scorecard, and a prioritised remediation roadmap with Terraform/CLI remediation examples where applicable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Deliverables
Executive Summary Report
AWS security posture overview with risk distribution, critical attack paths, and strategic hardening priorities for CISO and cloud leadership.
Technical Findings Report
Detailed findings across IAM, storage, networking, compute, and logging — with CVSS scores, attack path narratives, and Terraform/AWS CLI remediation examples.
CIS AWS Benchmark Scorecard
Control-by-control compliance scorecard against the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark with current status, risk rating, and remediation recommendations for each control.
IAM Privilege Escalation Report
Identified IAM privilege escalation paths and overpermissioning findings with least-privilege remediation recommendations and corrected policy examples.
Compliance Mapping & Remediation Roadmap
Prioritised 30/60/90-day remediation plan with findings mapped to PCI DSS, SOC 2, and CIS controls for audit submission.
Retest & Closure Certificate
Complimentary retest of critical and high severity findings with a signed closure certificate accepted for compliance and regulatory submissions.
Request a Security Assessment
Tell us about your environment and security objectives. We'll design a bespoke assessment and deliver a detailed proposal within 48 hours.