Amazon Web Services is the world's most widely adopted cloud platform, powering millions of businesses from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. Its flexibility, scalability, and breadth of services make it the platform of choice for organizations across the Research Triangle and beyond. However, the shared responsibility model that governs AWS security means that while Amazon secures the cloud infrastructure itself, you are responsible for securing everything you put in it. Misconfigurations, excessive permissions, unencrypted data, and inadequate monitoring in AWS environments are among the most common causes of cloud data breaches. According to Gartner, through 2025, 99 percent of cloud security failures will be the customer's fault, not the cloud provider's.

Petronella Technology Group provides comprehensive AWS security services that help Raleigh-Durham businesses leverage the full power of AWS without compromising security. Our team has deep expertise in AWS architecture, security best practices, and the compliance frameworks that Triangle businesses need. We help you design, implement, and manage secure AWS environments that meet your business requirements and regulatory obligations.

The AWS Shared Responsibility Model

Understanding the shared responsibility model is fundamental to AWS security. Amazon is responsible for the security of the cloud, which includes the physical infrastructure, hypervisor, managed services infrastructure, and global network. You are responsible for security in the cloud, which includes everything from the operating system on your EC2 instances to the data you store, the identity and access management configurations you set, and the network rules you define.

This division of responsibility means that simply moving to AWS does not automatically make your environment secure. In fact, the flexibility that makes AWS powerful also creates opportunities for misconfiguration. A single overly permissive S3 bucket policy, an IAM role with excessive privileges, or an unencrypted RDS database can expose your organization to significant risk.

Our AWS Security Services

AWS Security Assessment

Our AWS security assessment evaluates your entire AWS environment against CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark, AWS Well-Architected Framework security pillar, and your industry's compliance requirements. We review:

• Identity and Access Management: IAM policies, roles, users, groups, MFA enforcement, credential rotation, and least privilege adherence
• Network Security: VPC configurations, security groups, network ACLs, VPN connections, and internet-facing resource exposure
• Data Protection: Encryption at rest and in transit, S3 bucket policies, database security, and key management through AWS KMS
• Logging and Monitoring: CloudTrail configuration, CloudWatch alarms, VPC Flow Logs, AWS Config rules, and GuardDuty deployment
• Compute Security: EC2 instance configurations, security group rules, patch management, and container security
• Compliance Controls: Mapping of your AWS configuration against HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, NIST, or other applicable frameworks

AWS Architecture Design and Hardening

We design and harden AWS environments following the AWS Well-Architected Framework and security best practices. Our architecture services include:

• Multi-account strategy design with AWS Organizations
• VPC architecture with proper network segmentation
• Landing zone implementation for secure multi-account environments
• Security group and network ACL design
• IAM strategy with least privilege access
• Encryption strategy for data at rest and in transit
• Backup and disaster recovery architecture
• High availability and fault tolerance design

AWS Security Monitoring and Management

Our managed AWS security services provide continuous monitoring and management of your cloud environment. We deploy and manage AWS security services including:

• Amazon GuardDuty for intelligent threat detection
• AWS Security Hub for centralized security findings
• AWS CloudTrail for API activity logging
• Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and alerting
• AWS Config for configuration compliance monitoring
• Amazon Inspector for automated vulnerability assessment
• AWS IAM Access Analyzer for identifying overly permissive access

Our AI agent Eve integrates with these AWS services to provide unified monitoring alongside your on-premises systems, giving you a single pane of glass for your entire security posture.

AWS Compliance

We help organizations achieve and maintain compliance in their AWS environments for frameworks including HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, NIST 800-171, and CMMC. Our compliance services include mapping AWS controls to framework requirements, implementing necessary controls, documenting evidence, and preparing for audits. AWS offers a robust set of compliance-enabling services and certifications, but using them effectively requires expertise in both the framework and the platform.

AWS Migration Security

Migrating workloads to AWS is a critical transition that must be executed securely. We provide security guidance throughout the migration process, ensuring that security controls are designed and implemented before workloads move, not after. Our migration security services include pre-migration security assessment, secure architecture design, data migration security, identity integration, and post-migration validation.

Common AWS Security Mistakes We Help You Avoid

• Overly permissive S3 buckets: Publicly accessible S3 buckets have been responsible for some of the largest data breaches in history. We ensure your S3 policies follow least privilege and that public access is blocked unless explicitly required and properly secured.
• Root account usage: Using the AWS root account for day-to-day operations creates enormous risk. We implement proper IAM structures with MFA enforcement and root account lockdown.
• Inadequate logging: Without proper logging, you cannot detect or investigate security incidents. We ensure CloudTrail, CloudWatch, VPC Flow Logs, and other logging services are properly configured and monitored.
• Unencrypted data: Data at rest and in transit must be encrypted. We implement encryption across all storage services, databases, and network communications.
• Stale credentials and excessive permissions: Over time, IAM users accumulate permissions they no longer need, and service accounts retain credentials that should have been rotated. We implement credential management policies and regular access reviews.