Cloud security failures are almost never caused by provider vulnerabilities — they are caused by customer misconfiguration. The shared responsibility model puts the vast majority of security responsibility on you.
Identity and Access Management
- Enforce MFA on all root/owner accounts — no exceptions
- Apply principle of least privilege: every service account has only the permissions it needs
- Rotate access keys every 90 days, eliminate long-lived credentials
- Use IAM roles for EC2/Lambda instead of embedding access keys
- Enable CloudTrail / GCP Audit Logs for all API activity
Network Security Controls
Critical network security controls
| Control | Priority | Both AWS & GCP |
|---|---|---|
| VPC with private subnets | Critical | ✅ |
| Firewall rules (Security Groups) | Critical | ✅ |
| No public storage buckets | Critical | ✅ |
| Private database access | Critical | ✅ |
| DDoS protection (Shield/Armor) | High | ✅ |
⚠️
Most Common Breach Vector
Exposed storage buckets and overly permissive IAM policies account for over 60% of cloud security incidents. Run AWS Trusted Advisor and GCP Security Health Analytics monthly — both are free.
Cloud SecurityAWS SecurityIAMComplianceDevSecOps
Tanvir Tuhin
AI consultant, digital marketer, and study abroad mentor based in Aberdeen, UK. Founder of JJAT Education.
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