AWS Penetration Testing Services

An AWS Penetration Test is a controlled security assessment. It identifies vulnerabilities within AWS-hosted environments. Unlike a basic vulnerability scan, penetration testing actively checks if weaknesses can be exploited to compromise systems, gain unauthorized access, or affect business operations.

The assessment evaluates both cloud-native services and workloads running in AWS. This often includes EC2 instances, virtual networks, web applications, APIs, containers, serverless functions, identity services, databases, and storage resources. AWS permits testing against many customer-owned AWS resources but prohibits testing AWS-owned infrastructure and certain restricted activities.

The goal is not simply to generate a list of vulnerabilities but to understand the real-world risks they pose.

Many businesses move workloads to AWS assuming the cloud provider handles every aspect of security. In reality, AWS follows a shared responsibility model: AWS secures the underlying infrastructure, while you remain responsible for securing applications, identities, data, configurations, and access controls. AWS allows penetration testing for many services without prior approval, provided testing follows AWS policies and restrictions.

As AWS environments grow, so does their complexity. New accounts, services, users, applications, and integrations can introduce security gaps that automated tools may miss. Penetration testing helps you understand how an attacker could exploit those weaknesses to reach cloud resources and business-critical systems.

Common issues uncovered during AWS penetration testing include overly permissive IAM roles, exposed services, weak authentication controls, insecure storage configurations, insufficient network segmentation, vulnerable applications, and opportunities for privilege escalation.

Every engagement starts with planning. We work closely with you to review your AWS architecture, define the scope, and align testing with your business goals, security priorities, and operational requirements.

We combine manual testing with automated analysis to uncover security weaknesses across your cloud infrastructure. Our team focuses on identity and access management, network security, cloud-native services, exposed resources, application security, and paths to privilege escalation.

Where appropriate, we test whether attackers could use a single weakness to move deeper into your AWS environment. This helps you understand likely impact, prioritize remediation, and reduce risk more effectively.

After testing, you receive a detailed report with findings, risk ratings, business impact, clear remediation guidance, and prioritized next steps so your team can take action quickly.

What an AWS penetration test covers depends on your environment and goals. Tanner can review the following areas based on what you need.

Identity and Access Management: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is key to cloud security. Tanner reviews users, roles, policies, permissions, trust relationships, authentication controls, and other identity settings to find ways attackers could get unauthorized access or extra privileges. Testing can uncover problems like too many permissions, misconfigured roles, weak authentication, exposed access keys, and other issues that could let attackers gain more access than intended.

AWS Network Security: We review the network controls that protect AWS resources from unauthorized access. Depending on the scope, testing may include VPC settings, security groups, network access controls, routing, exposed services, and how resources are separated. The goal is to find out if an attacker could reach systems or services they should not be able to access from their starting point.

Cloud Storage and Data Exposure: AWS storage services often contain a company’s most sensitive data. Testing checks access rights and exposure for services like Amazon S3 and other cloud storage. Tanner looks for cases where unauthorized users or compromised accounts could access sensitive information.

AWS Workloads: AWS environments may include EC2 instances, containers, serverless applications, databases, and other workloads. If these systems are included, Tanner checks them for vulnerabilities and weak configurations that could let an attacker gain access or move deeper into your environment.

APIs and Cloud Applications: Modern AWS setups often use APIs and applications to connect cloud services, databases, identity systems, and external users. Testing reviews authentication, authorization, access controls, input handling, exposed features, and other application-level weaknesses that could let attackers access more resources or data than they should.

Credentials and Secrets: If credentials, access keys, tokens, or other authentication details are exposed, attackers could use them to access your cloud environment directly. Tanner checks the agreed areas for ways attackers might obtain or misuse credentials and assesses whether those credentials could grant broader access.

Logging and Security Monitoring: Depending on your needs, Tanner can check if your security logging and monitoring provide enough visibility into possible attacks. Good logging helps you detect suspicious activity and investigate incidents. Testing can find gaps that might allow attackers to go unnoticed.

Many AWS security incidents stem from configuration errors rather than software vulnerabilities. During AWS penetration testing engagements, our consultants frequently identify security weaknesses involving identity management, cloud storage, network security, and access control configurations.

Some of the most common issues include overly permissive IAM roles, publicly exposed S3 buckets, unrestricted security groups, excessive administrative privileges, insecure API endpoints, inadequate logging, weak multi-factor authentication, and cloud resources accessible from the internet when they should remain private.

These types of misconfigurations can create opportunities for attackers to gain unauthorized access, escalate privileges, move laterally between resources, and access sensitive business data.

Identifying and correcting these weaknesses significantly reduces the attack surface of an AWS environment while improving overall cloud security maturity.

AWS penetration testing can support numerous cybersecurity and compliance initiatives. Many businesses perform cloud penetration testing to satisfy internal security requirements, prepare for audits, validate cloud security controls, or demonstrate due diligence to customers and business partners.

Penetration testing can support security programs aligned with PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, CIS Controls, CMMC, and other industry standards that emphasize vulnerability management and security testing.

Regular testing shows that independent parties have evaluated and validated your cloud security controls.

One of the most common misconceptions about cloud security is that moving to AWS automatically transfers all security responsibilities to Amazon. In reality, AWS operates under a Shared Responsibility Model that divides security responsibilities between AWS and its customers.

AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud, including the physical data centers, hardware, networking infrastructure, and foundational cloud services that support the AWS platform. Customers, however, remain responsible for cloud security. This includes managing user access, configuring security controls, securing applications, protecting sensitive data, implementing encryption, maintaining operating systems, and monitoring cloud resources for suspicious activity.

The specific responsibilities vary depending on the AWS services being used. For example, AWS assumes more operational responsibility for managed services such as Amazon RDS and AWS Lambda, while customers retain greater responsibility for infrastructure deployed on Amazon EC2 instances. Regardless of the service model, businesses remain accountable for ensuring that their cloud environments are configured securely and that access to sensitive resources is properly controlled.

Many AWS security incidents occur not because AWS infrastructure was compromised, but because customer-managed resources were misconfigured, overly permissive, or insufficiently monitored. An AWS Penetration Test helps validate that security controls implemented under the customer’s portion of the Shared Responsibility Model are functioning as intended and effectively protecting cloud resources from real-world attacks.

Every AWS penetration test begins by understanding your environment, business goals, testing needs, and the rules for how testing will be conducted.

1. Define the Scope: We determine which AWS accounts, applications, resources, identities, networks, and services will be included in the assessment. We also set clear rules to protect your production systems and define exactly what testing is permitted.
2. Understand the AWS Environment: Our consultants review your setup and identify the systems, identities, services, applications, and possible attack points that are relevant for the test.
3. Perform Automated Security Testing: Automated tools help us find vulnerabilities, weak configurations, exposed resources, and other security issues in the agreed testing areas. Automated testing covers many areas, but it is only one part of the assessment.
4. Conduct Manual Testing: Experienced testers review the findings and investigate weaknesses that automated tools cannot fully assess. Manual testing is especially important for checking permissions, business logic, attack paths, and how AWS services interact.
5. Attempt Controlled Exploitation: When permitted and appropriate, Tanner attempts to exploit the weaknesses found to see if they could lead to unauthorized access, more privileges, or access to sensitive resources.
6. Analyze Attack Paths: We check if separate weaknesses can be combined to create a larger security problem. This helps us tell the difference between a theoretical vulnerability and a real attack path.
7. Document Findings: Tanner provides detailed findings that explain the vulnerability, affected resources, evidence, potential impact, and recommended fixes.
8. Prioritize Remediation: Not every issue carries the same risk. We help your team identify which problems need immediate attention and which can be addressed in your long-term security plan.
9. Retest Remediation: If it’s part of the engagement, Tanner can retest vulnerabilities after you fix them to make sure the changes worked.

Penetration testing can support security and compliance programs that require or recommend periodic security testing.

Depending on your industry and requirements, AWS penetration testing may support security programs involving:

• PCI DSS
• HIPAA
• SOC 2
• ISO 27001
• NIST
• CMMC

A penetration test alone does not make your company compliant with any regulation or framework. Instead, it provides evidence about how well your security controls work and helps you find weaknesses that need to be fixed.

Tanner Security is an independent security consulting firm with more than 25 years of experience helping organizations identify and reduce risk. Our team combines cloud security, penetration testing, and risk management expertise to uncover critical vulnerabilities and deliver practical guidance.

We do more than provide a list of automated findings. We focus on real-world risk, business impact, and remediation steps your team can use to improve security quickly and confidently.

Contact Tanner Security to gain confidence in your AWS environment, strengthen cloud security, and reduce business and compliance risk.

You shouldn’t have to guess what could happen if an attacker gains access to your AWS environment.

Tanner Security can help you identify exploitable vulnerabilities, understand attack paths, and prioritize the security improvements that matter most.

Contact Tanner Security to discuss an AWS penetration test for your environment.

Want to understand your AWS risk before an attacker does? Let’s talk.