Security in Major Cloud Platforms

Regardless of the cloud provider, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the single most critical security control.

IAM (Identity and Access Management)

• AWS IAM/Azure AD: These services control who can access what cloud resources and under what conditions.
• Principle of Least Privilege in Cloud: Do not grant excessive permissions to users or services. A virtual machine should only have permissions necessary for its intended task, no more.

Network Security Groups (NSG) / Security Groups (SG)

These act as stateful, virtual firewalls for your cloud resources (VMs).

• Function: Control incoming and outgoing traffic based on IP address, port, and protocol.
• Security Tip: Never expose management ports (SSH 22, RDP 3389) to the entire internet (0.0.0.0/0). Restrict access only to known source IPs or via a VPN.