IaaS Security Review: A Survival Drill
Servers fail. Networks leak. Code misbehaves. In Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the margin between security and disaster is razor-thin. An IaaS security review is not a checkbox—it is a survival drill.
An effective IaaS security review begins with a clear map of assets. Identify every VM, container, network segment, storage bucket, and API endpoint running under your account. Tag them. Catalog them. All misconfigured resources are risk points.
Next, assess identity and access controls. MFA should be enforced on all accounts. Role-based access should replace blanket privileges. Audit the list of active keys and tokens—rotate or revoke anything unused. Public-facing endpoints without strict authentication are liabilities.
Network controls come next. Verify security groups, firewall rules, and routing tables. Deny by default, allow by necessity. Inspect peering connections and VPN tunnels for unexpected paths. Block any unused ports and protocols to cut attack surfaces.
Storage review is critical. Every bucket, blob, or disk must have encryption at rest and in transit. Public access settings should be disabled unless explicitly required. Scan for unencrypted backups and forgotten snapshots. Data leaks often start here.
Patch management follows. Compare active versions of OS images and libraries against known vulnerabilities. Build automated patch pipelines. Avoid “golden images” that age without updates—these silently accumulate risk.
Incident response readiness is the last layer. Logging must be enabled for all services, with logs streaming to secure centralized storage. Alerting should trigger on anomalies like unexpected region launches, policy changes, or spikes in egress bandwidth. Test recovery procedures at least quarterly.
The IaaS threat surface is wide. Missteps compound quickly. A disciplined, repeatable security review process is the only guard against cascading failure. Implement the checks, automate them, and validate results with real attack simulations.
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