Security
63 articles on Security — AWS security, compliance, and account management from the Vigilare team.
MFA Everywhere: The Cheapest Security Upgrade for Your AWS Account
Multi-factor authentication costs nothing and blocks the most common attack vector. Here's how to enable MFA on every account that matters — root, IAM users, and SSO — with step-by-step instructions.
Viktor B. · May 1, 2026 · 7 min read
Do I Need a CSPM? A Decision Framework for Small Teams
Cloud Security Posture Management tools cost $5,000-50,000/year. Here's a practical framework for deciding whether your team actually needs one — or whether simpler tools cover your real risks.
Viktor B. · February 20, 2026 · 8 min read
The Solo Engineer's Guide to AWS IAM: Stop Using Root
You're the only engineer. You've been using the root account for everything. Here's the practical, no-BS guide to setting up IAM properly — in under 20 minutes, with the least possible ongoing maintenance.
Viktor B. · February 13, 2026 · 10 min read
AWS Trusted Advisor: Automating Best Practice Monitoring and Alerts
How to use AWS Trusted Advisor programmatically — automating checks for security, cost, fault tolerance, and performance, and integrating findings into your monitoring workflow.
Viktor B. · February 6, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS Security Findings Explained in Plain English
GuardDuty, Security Hub, and Config generate findings with names like 'Recon:EC2/PortProbeUnprotectedPort.' Here's what the most common findings actually mean, whether they're urgent, and what to do about each one.
Vigilare Engineering · February 6, 2026 · 9 min read
AWS Route 53 Security: Protecting Your DNS Infrastructure
Secure your DNS infrastructure with Route 53 health checks, DNSSEC, query logging, and monitoring to prevent DNS hijacking, subdomain takeover, and DNS-based attacks.
Vigilare Engineering · January 24, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS Secrets Manager: Securing and Monitoring Your Application Secrets
How to use AWS Secrets Manager to eliminate hardcoded credentials, automate rotation, and monitor for unauthorized secret access across your AWS environment.
Vigilare Engineering · January 20, 2026 · 9 min read
AWS KMS Security: Key Management Monitoring and Best Practices
A practical guide to securing AWS Key Management Service — monitoring key usage, preventing unauthorized decryption, and detecting KMS misconfigurations before they cause data breaches.
Vigilare Engineering · January 19, 2026 · 10 min read
Vigilare vs Prisma Cloud for AWS: Purpose-Built vs. Enterprise CSPM
Prisma Cloud is a comprehensive enterprise cloud security platform. Vigilare is purpose-built for AWS account health and suspension prevention. This comparison helps AWS-focused teams understand which fits their needs.
Viktor B. · January 17, 2026 · 8 min read
Vigilare vs Datadog for AWS Monitoring: Different Tools, Different Jobs
Datadog is an observability platform. Vigilare is an AWS account health and security monitoring platform. Understanding the distinction — and where they complement each other — helps teams make the right tooling decisions.
Viktor B. · January 16, 2026 · 8 min read
CSPM Tools Compared: Choosing Cloud Security Posture Management for AWS
Cloud Security Posture Management tools evaluate configuration, detect misconfigurations, and track compliance across cloud environments. This comparison of the major options helps you choose the right CSPM for your AWS environment and team size.
Viktor B. · January 15, 2026 · 9 min read
AWS Security Tools Compared: GuardDuty, Security Hub, Config, and More
AWS offers many overlapping security services — GuardDuty, Security Hub, Config, Inspector, Macie, Detective. Understanding what each does, what it doesn't do, and how they work together helps you build a monitoring stack without gaps or redundancy.
Viktor B. · January 14, 2026 · 10 min read
AWS ECR Security: Container Image Scanning and Registry Protection
ECR security encompasses image vulnerability scanning, access control, lifecycle policies, and immutable tags. This guide covers the configurations that make your container registry a security asset rather than a liability.
Viktor B. · January 13, 2026 · 7 min read
AWS ECS Security: Task Roles, Network Mode, and Container Hardening
ECS security centers on task IAM roles, network mode selection, and container-level policies. This guide covers the security configurations for Fargate and EC2 launch type tasks that protect containerized workloads.
Vigilare Engineering · January 12, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS EKS Security: Hardening Kubernetes Clusters on AWS
EKS security spans cluster configuration, pod-level controls, IAM integration, and network policies. This guide covers the essential security controls for production EKS workloads and the monitoring that detects container-layer threats.
Vigilare Engineering · January 11, 2026 · 10 min read
AWS DynamoDB Security: Access Control, Encryption, and Audit Logging
DynamoDB security requires careful IAM policy design, encryption configuration, and VPC endpoint setup. This guide covers the controls that protect DynamoDB data and the monitoring that detects unauthorized access.
Vigilare Engineering · January 10, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS RDS Public Access: Finding and Eliminating Exposed Databases
Publicly accessible RDS instances are a critical finding in any AWS security review. This guide covers why databases become public, how to find them, and the remediation steps that eliminate exposure without breaking applications.
Viktor B. · January 9, 2026 · 7 min read
AWS Security on a Budget: What to Enable When You Can't Afford Enterprise Tools
Enterprise security tools cost $5,000-50,000/year. Here's how to build a security posture that covers the real risks for under $100/month using AWS native tools and one smart addition.
Viktor B. · January 9, 2026 · 10 min read
AWS RDS Security: Hardening Managed Databases Against Common Threats
RDS security encompasses network access, encryption, authentication, and audit logging. This guide covers the configurations that prevent unauthorized database access and the monitoring that detects suspicious activity.
Vigilare Engineering · January 8, 2026 · 9 min read
AWS AssumeRole Monitoring: Detecting Unauthorized Cross-Account Access
Role assumption is the primary mechanism for cross-account access in AWS, and unauthorized assumption is a key signal of compromise or misconfiguration. This guide covers monitoring AssumeRole activity with CloudTrail and building alerts for suspicious patterns.
Viktor B. · January 7, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS Resource-Based Policies: Security Implications and Best Practices
Resource-based policies — S3 bucket policies, KMS key policies, SQS queue policies — directly grant access to resources without role assumption. Misconfigured resource policies are a common source of unauthorized access. This guide covers the security model and safe patterns.
Vigilare Engineering · January 6, 2026 · 8 min read
Cross-Account CloudTrail: Centralizing Audit Logs Across Your AWS Organization
Centralizing CloudTrail logs across multiple AWS accounts is essential for security investigations, compliance evidence, and anomaly detection. This guide covers the architecture for tamper-resistant centralized audit logging.
Viktor B. · January 5, 2026 · 7 min read
AWS Cross-Account Access: IAM Roles and Trust Policies at Scale
Cross-account access through IAM role assumption is foundational to multi-account AWS architectures. This guide covers trust policy design, security constraints for role assumption, and monitoring patterns that maintain visibility across account boundaries.
Vigilare Engineering · January 4, 2026 · 9 min read
AWS Acceptable Use Policy Violations: Common Violations and How to Avoid Them
AWS AUP violations result in service restrictions or account suspension. Most violations affecting legitimate businesses come from compromised accounts rather than intentional misuse — but the consequences are the same. Here's what triggers AUP enforcement and how to prevent it.
Viktor B. · January 3, 2026 · 7 min read
AWS Account Reputation: Maintaining Good Standing with AWS
AWS account reputation affects sending limits, access to services, and enforcement risk. This guide covers what AWS monitors, how to maintain good standing, and what to do when reputation issues arise.
Viktor B. · January 2, 2026 · 7 min read
Weekend Project: Audit Your AWS Account in 30 Minutes
Grab a coffee, open your terminal, and run through this 30-minute audit of your AWS account. You'll find forgotten resources, security gaps, and cost-saving opportunities — with copy-paste commands for each check.
Viktor B. · January 2, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS Abuse Prevention: Protecting Your Account from AUP Violations
AWS Acceptable Use Policy violations can result in service suspension even when they're caused by account compromise rather than intentional misuse. Understanding what triggers abuse reports and how to prevent them is essential account hygiene.
Viktor B. · January 1, 2026 · 8 min read
AWS Crypto Mining Detection: Finding and Stopping Mining Before the Bill Arrives
Cryptocurrency mining is the most common form of unauthorized resource use in AWS accounts. This guide covers how mining activity looks in CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and billing data — and how to detect it in minutes rather than days.
Viktor B. · December 31, 2025 · 8 min read
AWS Cloud Forensics: Investigating Security Incidents in AWS Environments
Cloud forensics in AWS uses different tools and techniques than traditional endpoint forensics. This guide covers the evidence sources, investigation methodology, and preservation techniques for AWS security incidents.
Vigilare Engineering · December 30, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS Security Runbooks: Pre-Built Response Procedures for Common Findings
Security runbooks convert complex incident response decisions into step-by-step procedures. This guide provides runbook templates for the most common AWS security findings and explains how to maintain them as your environment evolves.
Vigilare Engineering · December 29, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS Account Compromise Response: What to Do in the First Hour
AWS account compromise — typically via stolen IAM credentials — requires immediate, specific actions to contain damage. This guide covers the response playbook for the most common compromise scenario, from first detection to verified containment.
Viktor B. · December 28, 2025 · 9 min read
AWS Incident Response Plan: Building the Process Before You Need It
AWS security incidents require fast, coordinated response. Building your incident response plan before an incident — and practicing it — is the difference between an incident that's contained and one that becomes a crisis.
Viktor B. · December 27, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS Lambda IAM Permissions: Implementing Least Privilege for Serverless Functions
Lambda execution roles are where serverless security often fails. This guide covers how to define, audit, and automate minimum-permission execution roles for Lambda functions at scale.
Viktor B. · December 24, 2025 · 8 min read
AWS Lambda Security: Function Hardening and Threat Detection
Lambda's serverless model creates unique security considerations. No servers to patch, but function code, permissions, and execution environment all require security attention. This guide covers Lambda security from permissions to runtime hardening.
Vigilare Engineering · December 23, 2025 · 9 min read
AWS Network ACLs: Subnet-Level Access Control for Defense in Depth
Network ACLs operate at the subnet level and provide a stateless firewall that complements security groups. Understanding when to use NACLs versus security groups, and how they interact, is essential for VPC security architecture.
Vigilare Engineering · December 22, 2025 · 7 min read
AWS Security Groups Best Practices: Writing Rules That Actually Work
Security groups are the primary network access control for EC2 and other services, but many environments accumulate rules that are overly broad, redundant, or provide weaker protection than intended. This guide covers the principles and practices that make security groups maintainable and secure.
Vigilare Engineering · December 21, 2025 · 8 min read
VPC Security Monitoring: Detecting Network Threats in AWS
VPC security monitoring combines flow logs, GuardDuty network findings, and DNS query logging to detect threats that bypass application-layer security. This guide covers the full network monitoring stack and what each layer catches.
Vigilare Engineering · December 19, 2025 · 9 min read
AWS Service Control Policies: Implementing Organization-Wide Guardrails
Service Control Policies are the strongest access control mechanism in AWS — they override IAM policies, apply to all principals including root, and can't be circumvented within an account. This guide covers SCP design, testing, and common guardrail patterns.
Vigilare Engineering · December 16, 2025 · 9 min read
ISO 27001 on AWS: Building an Information Security Management System
ISO 27001 certification requires an Information Security Management System with documented controls and evidence of operation. This guide maps Annex A controls to AWS configurations and explains what auditors look for in cloud-hosted environments.
Vigilare Engineering · December 10, 2025 · 9 min read
GDPR Compliance on AWS: Data Residency, Processing Agreements, and Technical Controls
GDPR compliance for AWS-hosted services requires data processing agreements, appropriate technical safeguards, and careful attention to data residency. This guide maps GDPR obligations to specific AWS configurations and controls.
Viktor B. · December 9, 2025 · 10 min read
PCI DSS Compliance on AWS: Protecting Cardholder Data in the Cloud
PCI DSS compliance for AWS workloads requires specific architectural controls around cardholder data environments. This guide covers the key requirements, network segmentation, and how to scope your CDE correctly to minimize compliance burden.
Vigilare Engineering · December 8, 2025 · 10 min read
HIPAA Compliance on AWS: Technical Safeguards and the BAA Requirement
Handling PHI on AWS requires signing a Business Associate Agreement with AWS and implementing specific technical safeguards. This guide covers what HIPAA requires technically, which AWS services are HIPAA-eligible, and common implementation mistakes.
Viktor B. · December 7, 2025 · 10 min read
SOC 2 Compliance on AWS: A Practical Implementation Guide
SOC 2 compliance on AWS requires implementing specific technical controls and maintaining evidence of continuous operation. This guide maps SOC 2 trust service criteria to concrete AWS configurations and monitoring requirements.
Viktor B. · December 6, 2025 · 11 min read
EC2 Patch Management with AWS Systems Manager: Keeping Instances Current
Unpatched EC2 instances are a leading source of AWS security findings — and a common path to account compromise. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager automates patching across your entire fleet. Here's how to set it up correctly.
Vigilare Engineering · November 22, 2025 · 9 min read
Migrating to IMDSv2: Blocking SSRF Attacks on EC2
IMDSv1 is exploitable via SSRF — a single vulnerable web app can hand an attacker your EC2 instance credentials. IMDSv2 requires a session-oriented token request that breaks the attack chain. Here's how to migrate without breaking your applications.
Vigilare Engineering · November 21, 2025 · 8 min read
AWS Security Checklist for Startups: The 15-Minute Setup
You don't need a security team to secure your AWS account. This checklist covers the exact steps — in order of impact — that every startup should complete in their first 15 minutes with a new AWS account.
Viktor B. · November 21, 2025 · 8 min read
Detecting Unauthorized EC2 Instances Before AWS Does
Unauthorized EC2 instances — whether from compromised credentials, rogue developers, or crypto mining attacks — are a leading cause of unexpected AWS bills and account suspension. Here's how to detect them in real time.
Viktor B. · November 20, 2025 · 7 min read
EC2 Security Groups Audit: Finding and Fixing Dangerous Rules
Overly permissive security groups are one of the most common findings in AWS security reviews. This guide shows how to audit every security group in your account, identify dangerous 0.0.0.0/0 rules, and build a process to catch drift before it becomes a breach.
Vigilare Engineering · November 19, 2025 · 8 min read
Essential AWS Config Rules: The Security and Compliance Checks That Actually Matter
AWS offers 300+ managed Config rules. Most organizations enable too few or too many — either missing critical security checks or drowning in low-signal findings. These are the rules that deliver the highest signal-to-noise ratio for security and compliance.
Vigilare Engineering · November 10, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS CloudTrail Log Integrity: Detecting Tampering and Ensuring Your Audit Trail Is Valid
An attacker who compromises an AWS account will attempt to cover their tracks by disabling CloudTrail or deleting log files. Log file validation and DeleteTrail alerting ensure your audit trail remains trustworthy even under active attack.
Viktor B. · November 8, 2025 · 8 min read
AWS Organization Trail: Setting Up Centralized Audit Logging for All Member Accounts
An organization trail captures management events from every account in your AWS Organization and delivers them to a single S3 bucket. It's the foundation of cross-account security investigation — and most organizations don't have it configured correctly.
Vigilare Engineering · November 7, 2025 · 8 min read
AWS CloudTrail Log Analysis: Athena Queries and CloudTrail Lake for Security Investigation
GuardDuty tells you something suspicious happened. CloudTrail tells you exactly what. Knowing how to query CloudTrail logs efficiently — through Athena or CloudTrail Lake — is the difference between a 30-minute investigation and a 3-day one.
Vigilare Engineering · November 6, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS CloudTrail Alerting: Detecting Critical API Events in Near Real Time
Raw CloudTrail logs don't alert on anything by default. Turning the audit trail into a real-time detection system requires EventBridge rules, CloudWatch metric filters, or both. This guide covers the events worth alerting on and how to build the detection pipeline.
Vigilare Engineering · November 5, 2025 · 9 min read
AWS CloudTrail Best Practices: Audit Logging Configuration That Actually Covers Your Environment
CloudTrail is the evidentiary foundation of every AWS security investigation. Most accounts have it partially configured — missing data events, logging to unsecured buckets, or running trails that exclude critical API calls. Here's what a complete configuration looks like.
Vigilare Engineering · November 4, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS GuardDuty Pricing and Cost Optimization: Full Coverage Without Overspending
GuardDuty pricing varies significantly by protection plan and data volume. Understanding the billing model — and which protection plans are essential versus optional — prevents surprise charges while maintaining meaningful coverage.
Viktor B. · November 3, 2025 · 7 min read
AWS GuardDuty vs Security Hub: Threat Detection vs Compliance Aggregation
GuardDuty detects active threats in real time. Security Hub aggregates findings and evaluates compliance posture. They're complementary, not competing — understanding where each fits prevents both gaps and redundancy.
Viktor B. · November 2, 2025 · 7 min read
AWS GuardDuty Multi-Account: Centralized Threat Detection Across Your Organization
Running GuardDuty account-by-account creates blind spots. The delegated administrator model centralizes findings from every account in your AWS Organization — here's how to set it up and what you gain from it.
Vigilare Engineering · November 1, 2025 · 8 min read
AWS GuardDuty Findings: Severity Levels, Finding Types, and Response Playbooks
GuardDuty generates findings across credential access, network, S3, and container threat categories. Understanding what each finding type means — and how to respond — determines whether your threat detection actually prevents incidents.
Vigilare Engineering · October 31, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS GuardDuty Setup: Complete Configuration Guide for Threat Detection
GuardDuty provides ML-based threat detection across CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS — but only if configured correctly. This guide covers organization-wide deployment, protection plans, and the settings that actually matter.
Vigilare Engineering · October 30, 2025 · 9 min read
AWS IAM Security Monitoring: Detect Root Logins, MFA Gaps, and Policy Drift
IAM credentials are the most common AWS breach vector. This guide covers root account login detection, MFA gap identification, IAM policy drift monitoring, and the pipeline that ties it all together.
Vigilare Engineering · October 26, 2025 · 11 min read
AWS Multi-Account Monitoring: Unified Visibility Across Your Organization
The multi-account architecture AWS recommends for security isolation creates a monitoring gap: each account is an island. Here's how to build unified visibility across security, billing, and compliance — and where native tools fall short.
Vigilare Engineering · October 22, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS Compliance Monitoring & Risk Scoring: Quantify Your Security Posture
Compliance in AWS is not a binary state. Learn how to implement risk scoring that aggregates Config, Security Hub, GuardDuty, service quotas, and billing health into a single, actionable account health score.
Viktor B. · October 20, 2025 · 10 min read
AWS Security Monitoring Tools Compared: GuardDuty, CloudTrail, Security Hub & Beyond
GuardDuty, CloudTrail, Security Hub, Config — AWS's native monitoring stack is powerful but fragmented. This comparison breaks down what each tool covers, where each falls short, and how to build a complete stack without the gaps.
Vigilare Engineering · October 19, 2025 · 11 min read