AWS Security Review: From IAM to Incident Response
Amazon Web Services is the world's dominant cloud platform, and its security configuration options are both powerful and complex. A misconfigured AWS environment is one of the most common sources of data breaches, credential theft, and compliance failures in the technology industry. An AWS security review systematically assesses your environment against AWS security best practices, CIS Benchmarks for AWS, and the requirements of your target compliance framework (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS) — producing a prioritised hardening roadmap.
AWS IAM: The Most Critical Security Domain
IAM (Identity and Access Management) is the most important security domain in any AWS environment. Misconfigurations here create a blast radius that no other control can compensate for.
Root account: The AWS root account should have MFA enabled, no access keys, and should never be used for routine operations. A hardware MFA device is recommended.
IAM users vs. federated identity: Organisations with more than a handful of users should use federated identity (AWS SSO / IAM Identity Center with an enterprise identity provider) rather than maintaining individual IAM users.
Least privilege policies: Every IAM role and user should have only the permissions they need for their specific purpose. Use the IAM Access Analyzer to identify unused permissions and policy simulations to test policies before deployment.
Permission boundaries: For multi-account environments, permission boundaries limit the maximum permissions that can be delegated — preventing privilege escalation even if a role policy is misconfigured.
IAM credential report: Regularly generate and review the IAM credential report to identify unused access keys, passwords, and users without MFA.
VPC and Network Security
Security groups: Security groups are stateful firewalls at the instance level. Review all security groups for 0.0.0.0/0 ingress on sensitive ports (SSH/22, RDP/3389, databases). Implement least-privilege security group rules.
Network ACLs: NACLs provide stateless subnet-level filtering. Use NACLs for broad network policy enforcement at the subnet level, particularly in regulated environments.
VPC Flow Logs: Enable VPC Flow Logs in all VPCs to capture IP traffic information for security analysis, incident investigation, and compliance evidence. Ship logs to CloudWatch Logs or S3 with appropriate retention.
Endpoint services: Use VPC Endpoints for accessing AWS services (S3, DynamoDB, KMS, SSM) without requiring internet gateway routes — reducing the attack surface and improving compliance posture.
AWS Native Security Services
AWS provides a comprehensive suite of native security services that every production environment should have configured:
AWS CloudTrail: Log all API calls across all AWS services in all regions. Enable management events and configure S3 data events for sensitive buckets. Protect the CloudTrail log bucket from tampering. This is non-negotiable for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance.
Amazon GuardDuty: Machine learning-based threat detection that identifies anomalous AWS API calls, cryptocurrency mining, credential theft patterns, and malware communication. Enable in all regions including regions you don't actively use (to detect any activity there).
AWS Security Hub: Aggregates security findings from GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie, and third-party tools into a unified dashboard. Enables CIS Benchmark compliance scoring and provides a central view of your security posture.
Amazon Macie: ML-powered data discovery and classification for S3 — identifying buckets containing personally identifiable information, credentials, or financial data that may require additional controls or compliance treatment.
AWS Config: Continuous assessment of resource configurations against Config Rules. Essential for drift detection and compliance evidence — Config snapshots and compliance history are valuable SOC 2 and ISO 27001 audit evidence.
Why Organisations Choose Savadub
Deep GRC Expertise
Our team holds practitioner-level expertise across every major compliance framework — not just theoretical knowledge, but hands-on implementation experience across multiple industries and organisation sizes.
Engineers, Not Just Consultants
We implement controls, not just recommend them. Our GRC engineers configure the systems, write the integrations, and build the monitoring pipelines that make compliance operational.
Global and African Regulatory Coverage
We understand both the global frameworks and the African regulatory environment — NDPR, NDPA, CBN directives, NITDA guidelines, and regional data protection laws — making us uniquely positioned for organisations operating across Africa and internationally.
Internal and External Audit Capability
We provide both embedded internal audit functions and independent third-party audit support, including CPA-accredited audit coordination for SOC examinations.
End-to-End Engagement
From initial gap assessment through certification, continuous monitoring, and ongoing compliance management — we are your long-term GRC partner, not a one-time consultant.
Industries We Serve
Financial Services · Healthcare · Technology & SaaS · Manufacturing · Logistics & Trade · Government & Public Sector · Energy & Critical Infrastructure · Education & EdTech · Media & Broadcasting · Retail & E-Commerce · Professional Services · Food & Beverage
Deliverables You Receive
Working with Savadub, every engagement delivers a concrete set of outputs:
- Gap Assessment Report — prioritised findings with effort estimates and risk ratings
- Compliance Roadmap — milestone-based plan from current state to certification or attestation
- Risk Register — organisational risk register with treatment plans
- Policy Pack — all required policies authored, reviewed, and approved
- Technical Control Implementation Evidence — configurations, screenshots, and audit trails
- Internal Audit Report — independent assessment of control effectiveness
- Audit Evidence Repository — organised, auditor-ready evidence collection
- Executive Summary Presentation — board and leadership-ready compliance status
- Remediation Tracker — structured tracking of open findings and closure evidence
- Continuous Monitoring Setup — ongoing CCM pipeline for post-certification compliance
Get Started with Savadub
Savadub's GRC practice combines deep compliance expertise with technical engineering capability. We don't just advise — we build, implement, and operate your compliance program from the ground up.
Book a free GRC consultation with our team. We will review your current posture, identify your most critical gaps, and give you a clear, costed roadmap to compliance.
Contact us:
- Email: grc@savadub.com
- Phone: +234 816 734 2201, +234 903 234 8435
- WhatsApp: +234 816 734 2201, +234 903 234 8435
- Website: www.savadub.com/grc-services
