--- title: "AWS Security Services [Cheat Sheet] - Cybr" description: "AWS offers quite a large number of security-focused services and features. Here is a cheat sheet to help you understand what they are and do." url: https://cybr.com/cloud-security/aws-security-services/ --- # AWS Security Services \[Cheat Sheet\] Every AWS-native security service, grouped by what it protects: identity, detection and response, network and application protection, data protection, and compliance. Christophe Published October 10, 2023 · Updated October 27, 2026 Whether you're actively trying to secure your AWS environments, you're studying for the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam, or you're just curious about cloud security, you'll find that AWS offers a large number of security services. That can be daunting at first, but it doesn't have to be. This post lists the AWS-native security services you can use in your AWS accounts, grouped by what they help protect. Each one has far more features than we can cover here, so think of this as a map: what each service is for, and where it fits. ## Cheat sheet ## AWS Native Security Services This represents a list of AWS’ native security services, broken down by category and explained in high-level detail. [Cybr](https://cybr.com/) ### Identity and Access Management IAM Manage identities and access to AWS services and resources. This service lets you create IAM Users, Groups, Roles, Policies, and more **IAM Access Analyzer** IAM feature for least privilege: external, internal & unused access findings, policy validation & checks, and policy generation IAM Identity Center (SSO) Manage access to multiple AWS accounts and applications, and connect to your corporate directory or the Directory Service Cognito Add user sign-up and sign-in to your web or mobile applications Verified Permissions Policy-based access control by using roles and attributes with Cedar Directory Service Managed Microsoft AD, or AD Connector to an existing on-prem AD, to give AD users & groups access to AWS (can connect to Identity Center) RAM (Resource Access Manager) Securely share resources across multiple accounts, like VPC subnets, private certificate authorities, etc... Organizations Centrally manage multi-account AWS environments and enable services like Identity Center, Control Tower, and more ### Detection and Response GuardDuty Continuous threat detection for accounts & workloads, with protection plans for S3, EKS, runtime, RDS, Lambda & malware. Extended Threat Detection correlates multi-stage attacks Inspector Automated vulnerability management for EC2, container images, Lambda & source code. Scans for software vulnerabilities, code issues & unintended network exposure Security Hub Correlates findings from GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie, Security Hub CSPM & more into prioritized security risks across your accounts Security Hub CSPM Automated posture checks against standards like CIS & AWS Foundational Security Best Practices (the original Security Hub) Security Incident Response Triage of GuardDuty & Security Hub findings, guided containment, and 24/7 access to the AWS Customer Incident Response Team Security Lake Central location to store all of your security data. Then analyze and visualize this data through Athena/OpenSearch/SageMaker, etc... Detective Conduct security investigations by analyzing & visualizing security data related to security issues. Integrates with many services on this list CloudWatch Monitor your account, applications, and resources on AWS, on-prem, or on other clouds. Collects all sorts of data (not just security related) CloudTrail Track API usage and user activity across all of your AWS accounts and regions. Enables incident response & audits, and detects unusual activity IoT Device Defender Security for IoT devices & fleets. Audits device configurations against best practices (Detect is closed to new customers) Elastic Disaster Recovery Disaster recovery service that lets you test, recover, and fail back cloud-based & on-prem apps ### Network and application protection Firewall Manager Centrally manage AWS WAF, Shield Advanced, security groups & network ACLs, Network Firewall, Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall & 3rd party firewalls Network Firewall Deploy across your VPCs to control traffic flowing in and out Shield DDoS protection for your apps & AWS resources. Standard is free & covers L3/L4. Advanced adds L7 protection with WAF, the Shield Response Team & cost protection Verified Access Validates corporate application requests before granting access and removes the need for a VPN Web Application Firewall (WAF) Protect web apps from common exploits (like SQLi, XSS, etc...) & bots. Works with CloudFront, ALB, API Gateway, AppSync, Cognito, App Runner, Verified Access & Amplify Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall Firewall for outbound DNS traffic for your VPCs. You can create deny lists and allow lists for domains & protect against common DNS threats ### Data Protection Macie Uses ML and pattern matching to help protect sensitive data at scale. Example: it can detect PII stored in Amazon S3 and trigger automated remediation with EventBridge & Security Hub workflows Key Management Service (KMS) Create, manage, and control cryptographic keys for your applications and services. Used to encrypt or digitally sign data CloudHSM Single-tenant hardware security modules (HSMs) so you can generate and use your own encryption keys in instances only used by you & not other customers Certificate Manager SSL/TLS certificates you can create, deploy, & manage for use with AWS services and resources Payment Cryptography For organizations that process payments and need to secure the data with cryptographic functions and key management Private Certificate Authority Issue and manage private certificates. Great for IAM Roles Anywhere, as an example Backup Centralized, policy-based backups across AWS services, with Vault Lock & logically air-gapped vaults for ransomware recovery Secrets Manager Central management for secrets (passwords, private API keys, tokens, etc..). Works directly with KMS to encrypt secrets. Say bye to hardcoded secrets ### Compliance Artifact On-demand access to AWS security and compliance reports and select online agreements. Audit Manager Continuously audit your AWS environments against compliance frameworks (closed to new customers; AWS points to Config conformance packs) ### Honorable mentions Control Tower Set up, operate, and enforce multi-account environments security best practices & controls AWS Systems Manager Manage your cloud resources for operations, app, change, and node management. Works great with Config, for example AWS Config Keeps an eye on configurations of your services & workloads, and enables automated remediation when deviations happen to remain compliant ### Use this cheat sheet with AI Copy a ready-to-use prompt into your preferred AI assistant. Goal Preview prompt Prompt **Cybr** © 2026 - Cybr, Inc Sources and more info: [\- More info from AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/products/security/](https://aws.amazon.com/products/security/) **More cheat sheets like this:** [https://cybr.com/cheat-sheets](https://cybr.com/cheat-sheets) ## Identity and Access Management ### IAM (Identity and Access Management) Manage identities and access to AWS services and resources. This service lets you create IAM Users, Groups, Roles, Policies, and more. ### IAM Identity Center (formerly SSO) Manage access to multiple AWS accounts and applications and connect to your corporate directory or the Directory Service. Creating users through Identity Center is meant to replace creating IAM Users in most cases since it provides multiple benefits, including not having to manage more passwords or access keys. ### Cognito Add user sign-up and sign-in to your web or mobile apps. ### Verified Permissions Policy-based access control by using roles and attributes with Cedar (an open-source language for access control by AWS). ### Directory Service Managed Microsoft Active Directory (AD), or AD Connector to proxy to an existing on-prem AD, to give AD users and groups access to AWS (can connect to Identity Center). ### RAM (Resource Access Manager) Securely share resources across multiple accounts, like VPC subnets, private certificate authorities, etc... ### Organizations Centrally manage multi-account AWS environments and enable services like Identity Center, Control Tower, and more. ## Detection and Response ### GuardDuty Automated and continuous threat detection backed by machine learning. It covers account and IAM activity out of the box, with optional protection plans for S3, EKS, ECS and EC2 runtime, Lambda, RDS logins, and malware scanning. Extended Threat Detection correlates signals into multi-stage attack sequences. ### Inspector Automated vulnerability management for EC2 instances, ECR container images, Lambda functions, and (with Code Security) source code repositories. Scans for software vulnerabilities, code issues, and unintended network exposure. ### Security Hub Correlates findings from GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie, Security Hub CSPM, and IAM Access Analyzer into prioritized security risks, so you can see what matters most across your accounts. ### Security Hub CSPM Automated security posture checks against standards like CIS and AWS Foundational Security Best Practices. This was the original Security Hub, renamed in 2025. ### Security Incident Response Helps you prepare for, respond to, and recover from security incidents: it triages GuardDuty and Security Hub findings, can run containment actions with your permission, and gives you 24/7 access to the AWS Customer Incident Response Team (CIRT). ### Security Lake Central location to store all of your security data. Then, you can analyze and visualize this data through Athena, OpenSearch, SageMaker, etc... ### Detective Conduct security investigations by analyzing and visualizing security data related to security issues. It integrates with many services mentioned on this page. ### Config Keeps an eye on configurations of your services and workloads, and enables automated remediation when deviations happen in order to remain compliant. ### CloudWatch Monitor your account, applications, and resources on AWS, on-prem, or on other clouds. It collects all sorts of data, and not just security-related data. For example, it can report back on performance metrics. ### CloudTrail Track API usage and user activity across all of your AWS accounts and regions. Enables incident response (IR) and audits, and detects unusual activity. Integrates well with multiple other services on this list, including CloudWatch, Athena, EventBridge, and others. ### IoT Device Defender Security for IoT devices and fleets. It audits device configurations against best practices. (Its Detect feature, for spotting abnormal device behavior, closed to new customers on August 31, 2026.) ### Elastic Disaster Recovery Disaster recovery (DR) service that lets you test, recover, and fail back cloud-based and on-prem applications. ### Backup Centralized, policy-based backups across AWS services, with Vault Lock (WORM) and logically air-gapped vaults for ransomware recovery. ## Network and Application Protection ### Firewall Manager Centralizes managing firewall rules including for: AWS WAF, AWS Shield Advanced, VPC security groups and network ACLs, AWS Network Firewall, Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall, and third-party firewalls. ### Network Firewall Deploy across your VPCs to control traffic flowing in and out. ### Shield DDoS protection for your apps and AWS resources. Standard is free and protects against L3/L4 attacks. Advanced is a paid upgrade that adds enhanced L3/L4 detection, L7 protection with AWS WAF (including automatic application-layer mitigation), 24/7 access to the Shield Response Team, and DDoS cost protection. ### Verified Access Validates corporate application requests before granting access and removes the need for a VPN. ### Web Application Firewall (WAF) Protects web applications from common exploits (like SQLi, XSS, etc...) as well as bot traffic. Can protect CloudFront, ALB, API Gateway REST APIs, AppSync, Cognito user pools, App Runner, Verified Access, and Amplify. ### Route 53 Resolver DNS Firewall Firewall for outbound DNS traffic for your VPCs. You can create deny lists and allow lists for domains and protect against common DNS threats. ## Data Protection ### Macie Uses machine learning (ML) and pattern matching to help protect sensitive data at scale. For example, it can help detect personally identifiable information (PII) stored in Amazon S3 and trigger automated remediation with EventBrige and Security Hub workflows, for example. ### Key Management Service (KMS) Create, manage, and control cryptographic keys for your applications and services. Used to encrypt or digitally sign data. ### CloudHSM Single-tenant hardware security modules (HSMs) so you can generate and use your own encryption keys in instances only used by you and not other customers. ### Certificate Manager SSL/TLS certificates you can create, deploy, and manage for use with AWS services and resources. ### Payment Cryptography For organizations that process payments and need to secure the data with cryptographic functions and key management. ### Private Certificate Authority Issue and manage private certificates. Great for IAM Roles Anywhere (for example). ### Secrets Manager Central management for secrets (passwords, private API keys, tokens, etc...). It works directly with KMS to encrypt secrets. You can use this service instead of having to hardcode secrets. For example, if you need to use or process a secret value in an AWS Lambda function, you don't have to hardcode it or pass it in the API call. You can instead give permissions to access the secret in Secrets Manager through a role and resource policy. ## Compliance ### Artifact On-demand access to AWS's security and compliance reports (like SOC and ISO reports) and agreements, so you can share them with auditors. ### Audit Manager Centrally and continuously audit your AWS environments to assess risks and compliance. Audit Manager closed to new customers on April 30, 2026, and AWS points new users to AWS Config conformance packs instead. ## Honorable mentions These are either not considered strictly security services, they don't really fit in one of the other categories, or they are features of another service already mentioned. We're including them here because they're very important services/features that deserve a mention of their own: - AWS Control Tower - Set up, operate, and enforce multi-account environments security best practices and controls - AWS Systems Manager (SSM) - Manage your cloud resources for operations, app, change, and node management. Works great with Config as an example. - IAM Access Analyzer - IAM feature that helps achieve least privilege: external and internal access findings, unused access findings, policy validation, custom policy checks, and policy generation from CloudTrail activity. More in [How to Achieve Least Privilege in AWS IAM](https://cybr.com/cloud-security/aws-iam-least-privilege/#about-access-analyzer). ## Additional Resources - [Introduction to AWS Security](https://cybr.com/courses/introduction-to-aws-security/) course - [AWS Threat Detection: Services and Events to Watch](https://cybr.com/cloud-security/aws-threat-detection/) - [Open-source AWS security tools](https://cybr.com/cloud-security/open-source-aws-security-tools/) ## Filed under - [Cloud Security](https://cybr.com/cloud-security/) - [AWS](https://cybr.com/tag/aws/) - [AWS Security](https://cybr.com/tag/aws-security/) - [AWS Security Cheat Sheets](https://cybr.com/tag/aws-security-cheat-sheets/) - [Cheat Sheets](https://cybr.com/tag/cheat-sheets/) - [Cloud Security](https://cybr.com/tag/cloud-security/) ## Comments Loading comments… Recommended resources [![Explore the AWS Certified Security Specialty course](https://media.cybr.com/2023/12/cybr-aws-security-specialty-banner-768x432.jpg)](https://cybr.com/courses/aws-certified-security-specialty-course/) ## Build practical AWS security skills Start with the core services, then prepare for the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam with guided lessons and hands-on practice. [Introduction to AWS Security](https://cybr.com/courses/introduction-to-aws-security/) [Security Specialty course](https://cybr.com/courses/aws-certified-security-specialty-course/)