Misconfigurations Are Common in AWS
Misconfigurations remain one of the most common causes of security incidents in AWS. Even with IaC and automation in place, teams can overlook gaps — like public S3 buckets, disabled logging, or overly permissive IAM policies — especially in dynamic or fast-changing environments.
These aren’t advanced exploits. They’re often the result of drift, inconsistent configurations, or simple human oversight. Without continuous visibility into the actual state of cloud resources, it’s easy for these risks to go unnoticed.
Below are some examples of common misconfigurations that continue to surface in real-world AWS environments:
S3 Buckets with Public Access Enabled
AWS provides settings like Block Public Access (BPA) to prevent accidental data exposure. However, BPA can be disabled at either the bucket or account level — sometimes for testing purposes — and never re-enabled. This misconfiguration can make sensitive data publicly accessible over the internet. A routine scan can catch this early, especially in accounts with many buckets owned by different teams or services.
IAM Users with Inactive or Long-Unused Credentials
Stale IAM access keys are a common finding in security reviews. These keys can pose a serious risk if leaked, even accidentally. Periodic checks can highlight IAM users with access keys that haven’t been used in 90+ days or accounts that no longer need them.
EC2 Instances Running Public or Outdated AMIs
Launching EC2 instances from public AMIs can introduce vulnerabilities, especially if the AMIs are no longer maintained or come from unverified sources. Security-conscious teams prefer standardized, patched images. Detecting usage of outdated or non-approved AMIs helps enforce this consistently.
Missing MFA on Root Accounts
The AWS root account has full administrative privileges and should only be used rarely, with MFA enforced. Surprisingly, many environments don’t enable MFA on root by default, especially in development or sandbox accounts.
CloudTrail Not Configured to Log Securely
CloudTrail is essential for auditing API activity across AWS. But misconfigured trails — such as those that don’t log all regions or don’t encrypt logs — can reduce its effectiveness. It’s also common to find trails that don’t use secure storage buckets or lack validation settings.
One Effective Approach to Catching These Issues
One effective approach to catching these issues is to regularly scan live AWS environments for misconfigurations, independently of deployment pipelines. This helps verify that the running infrastructure meets security and compliance expectations — not just what the code says it should look like.
GuardKite is a lightweight tool that helps with this. It performs daily checks across key AWS services like IAM, S3, EC2, CloudTrail, and KMS, surfaces configuration issues, and offers remediation guidance. There’s no agent to install, and setup takes only a few minutes. For DevOps and platform teams managing multiple accounts, it offers a practical way to monitor cloud posture over time.
