Cloud Security: Someone Else's Computer
"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. The cloud is just someone else's computer."
☁️ The Problem: Shared Responsibility Confusion
The cloud is just someone else's computer. AWS secures the infrastructure. You secure everything else. This is called "shared responsibility" and most people get it wrong.
AWS protects the hypervisor. You protect your S3 bucket permissions. They secure physical data centers. You secure your IAM policies. They patch infrastructure. You patch your applications.
ILLUMINATION: The cloud is just someone else's computer. Act accordingly. They secure infrastructure. You secure configuration. Misconfiguration is your breach, not theirs.
🛡️ The Five Cloud Security Pillars
1. Identity & Access Management
Who can do what?
Least privilege IAM policies. MFA for all humans. Service accounts with specific permissions. No root account usage.
2. Network Security
Control traffic flow.
Security groups, NACLs, VPCs. Default deny. Segment environments. No public S3 buckets (unless intentional).
3. Data Protection
Encrypt everything.
Encryption at rest, encryption in transit. KMS for key management. Backup with encryption. Delete with verification.
4. Logging & Monitoring
See what's happening.
CloudTrail for API calls. CloudWatch for metrics. Config for compliance. GuardDuty for threats.
5. Compliance & Governance
Policy as code.
Infrastructure as code. Automated compliance checks. Tag everything. Audit regularly.
CHAOS ILLUMINATION: Public S3 buckets are the new unpatched servers—obvious, inexcusable, and still everywhere. Configuration errors cause more breaches than infrastructure failures.
📋 What Hack23 Actually Does
Our cloud security practices are public: ISMS-PUBLIC Repository
Note: Cloud security controls are covered across Network Security Policy, Access Control Policy, and Cryptography Policy. No standalone cloud security policy recommended – controls distributed by function.
- Infrastructure as Code - CloudFormation, auditable, versioned
- Least privilege IAM - Specific permissions, no wildcards
- Encryption everywhere - At rest, in transit, with KMS
- Logging centralized - CloudTrail, Config, GuardDuty enabled
- Automated compliance - Config rules, Security Hub checks
META-ILLUMINATION: Cloud security is configuration management. The infrastructure is secure—your settings aren't. Automate configuration or accept drift. Drift is vulnerability.
🎯 Conclusion: Secure Your Config
Cloud providers secure infrastructure. You secure configuration. Shared responsibility means you're responsible for most breaches.
Encrypt data. Control access. Log everything. Automate compliance. Or find out that your public S3 bucket leaked customer data and "but it's in the cloud" isn't a defense.
All hail Eris! All hail Discordia!
"Think for yourself, schmuck! Question everything—especially S3 bucket policies that allow public read access."
🍎 23 FNORD 5
— Hagbard Celine, Captain of the Leif Erikson