AWS Security Studies

Marcus Paula | IT Engineer — TikTok EMEA | Dublin, Ireland 14x AWS Certifications | Cloud Security | IAM | Compliance

Hands-on AWS security practice: IAM auditing, cloud compliance automation and security posture assessment aligned with CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark.

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Operational Context

Cloud security skills applied in enterprise environments managing hybrid infrastructure across EMEA. Scripts and notes reflect real-world scenarios including IAM lifecycle management, asset visibility and compliance reporting.

KPI	Context
Security Incident Rate	Zero IAM-related incidents during EMEA expansion (Madrid · Milan)
Automation Rate	IAM audit previously manual → scripted, reducing review cycle by ~60%
Change Success Rate	100% on IAM policy changes across 3 EMEA sites with zero rollbacks
Risk Exposure Index	Eliminated standing root access keys and enforced MFA across accounts
IT Budget as % of Revenue	Automated compliance checks removed need for third-party audit tooling
Audit Readiness	CIS Benchmark checks automated — audit evidence generated on demand

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Contents

iam/
  aws-iam-audit.py      # CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark v1.4 — automated checks

aws-iam-audit.py

Evaluates AWS account security posture against CIS Benchmark.

Checks covered:

CIS Control	Check
1.1	Root account MFA enabled
1.4	No active root access keys
1.5–1.11	Password policy (length, complexity, rotation, reuse)
1.2	MFA on all console users
1.13	Access keys rotated within 90 days
1.16	No AdministratorAccess policy attached directly to users
S3	Public access block enabled on all buckets

# Default region: eu-west-1
python3 iam/aws-iam-audit.py

# Named profile, different region
python3 iam/aws-iam-audit.py --profile prod --region eu-central-1

Output: console summary + timestamped JSON report in audit-reports/.

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AWS Certifications (14)

Certificate	Year
AWS Foundations: Securing Your AWS Cloud	2020
Authentication and Authorization with AWS IAM	2020
Introduction to AWS Identity and Access Management	2020
Introduction to AWS Security Token Services (STS)	2020
Introduction to Amazon Inspector	2020
Introduction to Amazon Macie	2020
Introduction to Data Encryption	2020
Understanding Amazon EBS Volume Encryption	2020
Protect Your Web-facing Workloads with AWS Security Services	2020
AWS Certificate Manager — Private Certificate Authority	2020
Differences Between Security Groups and NACLs	2020
Introduction to AWS Artifact	2020
AWS Foundations: Machine Learning Basics	2020
Database, Analytics & Management	2019

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Topics Covered

IAM        — Identity and access management, roles, policies, STS
Inspector  — Vulnerability assessment and findings
Macie      — Data classification and sensitive data detection
KMS        — Key management and encryption at rest
VPC        — Security groups, NACLs, flow logs
WAF/Shield — Web application and DDoS protection
Artifact   — Compliance reports and agreements

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