The protection of your AWS infrastructure from cyberattacks, so just making it secure is not going to be enough anymore; it has to be much more than that. Although AWS is one of the most secure cloud platforms on the global market, cloud security is a shared responsibility. While AWS is responsible for securing the cloud's infrastructure, the responsibility of your organization is to ensure that what is in the cloud is safe.
Whether you are a business that has just started or you are one of the agencies in the federal government, if you can leverage these best five techniques that experts recommend, then you can not only protect your AWS against the threats that are continuously emerging but you also will not be too demanding for your IT teams.
1. Identify and Classify Your Cloud Assets
To protect your AWS environment effectively, the first step is understanding what you need to secure.
- Critical Information Assets: Business data, internal applications, and customer information.
- Supporting Assets: Hardware infrastructure, cloud resources, and third-party integrations.
By categorizing assets, you gain visibility into where sensitive data resides and what measures are needed to safeguard it, aligning with AWS Well-Architected Framework best practices.
2. Prioritize Security Strategy Over Tools
Tools are essential, but your security strategy should come first.
A robust strategy helps:
- Align security with business workflows
- Ensure consistent policy implementation
- Improve collaboration across development, DevOps, and security teams
By designing a strategy before selecting tools or controls, organizations can avoid reactive decision-making and build security into the foundation of cloud operations.
3. Control Admin Access with Least Privilege
Excessive permissions are one of the most common causes of data breaches.
- Restrict access to S3 buckets, EC2 instances, and critical services
- Use IAM policies to enforce the principle of least privilege
- Revoke access immediately for departing employees or terminated roles
Not every admin should have the same level of access. Limit root access and rotate credentials frequently to minimize insider threats and accidental misconfigurations.
4. Leverage Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs)
A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is essential for isolating and securing AWS resources.
With a VPC, you can:
- Segment public-facing and private workloads
- Restrict access to databases via private IPs
- Apply network access control lists (NACLs) and security groups for fine-grained control
This level of network segmentation significantly reduces your attack surface and allows you to build zero-trust architectures in AWS.
5. Implement a Cloud Disaster Recovery Plan
No system is immune to outages, be it due to cyberattacks, misconfigurations, or natural disasters.
A recent Wanclouds report revealed that 65% of IT leaders experienced at least one data loss incident last year. That’s why Disaster Recovery (DR) is a core part of any AWS security strategy.
Wanclouds VPC+ DRaaS offers:
- On-demand Snapshots and Automated Backups
- Full-stack recovery across regions or clouds
- Support for EKS, VPC blueprints, networking rules, and IAM policies
With VPC+, you can programmatically redeploy AWS workloads and infrastructure in minutes, ensuring business continuity with minimal effort or cost.
Benefits of Using Wanclouds VPC+ for AWS DR
- Fast RPO & RTO: Rapid recovery of services and data
- Comprehensive Coverage: Includes apps, infra, security, and network settings
- Cost-Efficient: Pay-as-you-go with no upfront infrastructure
- Seamless Integration: Works across AWS and other clouds
Ready to safeguard your AWS environment? Visit VPC+ on the AWS Marketplace or contact [email protected] for a custom demo.
