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Why do you need AWS penetration testing?

Jun 12, 2021

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Amazon Web Services or AWS is a platform that provides more than 90 cloud-hosting services to make the development and deployment process of web applications easier, economical, and reliable. AWS provides facilities such as content delivery with low latency, network infrastructure, storage and compute, hosting options for tenant companies, and so on.

AWS looks like an excellent option for any organization, but everything has its own merits and demerits. As technology evolves, hackers' brains develop, making the websites or applications hosted on AWS cloud a new target for cybercriminals.

AWS Penetration testing methodology and report is equally essential for the systems running on local infrastructure. However, the question is, what is penetration testing, and why should we Pen test AWS when it comes to security configurations? Read the article to clarify your doubts.

What is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing or pen testing is a process to evaluate the security of an IT infrastructure by exploiting the vulnerabilities in a way the hacker would do. These assessments help to discover the security gaps and loopholes present in the system. They plan a roadmap to eliminate these security issues to safeguard the system from any malicious activities.

Penetration testing can be viewed as an attempt to break into your system to see if an intruder would be able to do so or not without getting detected. The experts or pen testers break into your system and exploit the vulnerabilities using automated or manual tools and methodologies.

What is AWS Penetration Testing?

AWS Penetration testing is similar to traditional penetration testing, yet different. AWS pen-testing includes Testing on the cloud, Testing in the cloud, and Testing the cloud console.

Testing on the cloud involves penetration testing the infrastructure that was migrated to the cloud. It includes web applications hosted on the cloud and is tested for potential risks.

Testing in the cloud involves penetration testing the server hosting the application. Testing the cloud console checks the user configurations, access, and permissions that the administrator configures. This enables us to understand mismanaged privileges and rights given to employees who have no role to play in that specific task.

How is AWS penetration testing different from Traditional penetration testing?

AWS penetration testing differs from traditional pen testing due to its own with Amazon. In traditional pen testing, we check the underlying infrastructure and APIs, etc. but during pen-testing AWS, testing the cloud setup is also an essential step.

AWS testing also includes testing the components owned by the user. Components like S3 buckets, RDS or the database, Security groups, CloudWatch, Cloudtrail, and so on are essential for the web application and might have weak points that act as an entry point for the hackers. The pen testers must test these services and check the configuration gaps present to avoid unwanted access.

What is the need to pen test AWS?

Companies are migrating from physical infrastructure to cloud platforms like AWS due to the numerous benefits it provides. But not many of them know about the configuration and security gaps that often lead to security attacks.

The non-technical team of an organization deals with managing the business they are working with and prefer to opt for cloud services due to economical pricing and the wide range of services available. The technical team deals with the migration of the local infrastructure to the cloud.

However, the technical team might not be aware of the security misconfigurations and unnecessary permissions granted to all employees or open world to access their confidential information and business logic.

Penetration testing in AWS by a cybersecurity professional would ensure the safety of your application, infrastructure involved, services in use, and the configurations done by the admin.

There are several reasons for pen testing AWS as follows:

  1. To protect the cloud infrastructure at risk


Hosting a web application involves using services like file storage, web server, database, virtual machines, networking hardware, etc. Any of these services kept open to the outer world can lead to an attack on your running application.

Penetration testing is a way to detect all the vulnerabilities involved with the services in use. It will check the codes involved, the network infrastructure, and the computing infrastructure for any security gaps present.

  1. To bridge the common cloud security gap


Migrating to the AWS cloud enhances smooth functioning, but the gaps in security configurations lead to data and security breaches. Leaky S3 buckets to store data and files expose sensitive information to the internet.

Embedding the AWS access keys in the GitHub code can easily access your system to anyone in the world. Providing extra rights or privileges to employees increases the chance of a security breach.

AWS penetration testing is a tool to understand and analyze all such gaps present in the cloud environment of your application.

  1. Inappropriate understanding of the shared responsibility model


Clients often fail to understand that the security of the AWS environment is not only the task of AWS workers. AWS follows a shared responsibility model where the client and AWS collaboratively work towards the security of an application running on the cloud using services.

The failed understanding of this model among the users or organizations leads to security breaches. Penetration Testing in the AWS environment would help to fulfill the security requirements on the client's end after the vulnerabilities are discovered.

  1. Failure in implementation of multi-factor authentication


Unable to efficiently implement or operate multi-factor authentication is a critical issue due to which pen-testing AWS is required. This is due to the social engineering attacks, sharing of credentials, and privilege escalation.

Conclusion

AWS environment is complex to understand, and data security in the cloud can be challenging for teams. AWS penetration testing is an essential step towards making your AWS environment safe and protected and abiding by the organizations' security compliances.

Tags: English