AWS cloud audit for a scaling startup

Sector

B2B SaaS · scaling startup · 30-60 employees · multi-account AWS architecture · corporate clients requiring evidence.

Initial situation

The company had grown from a single AWS environment to a multi-account architecture without a formal cloud governance process. Every new corporate client added contractual requirements that the team met on a case-by-case basis. A minor bucket exposure incident triggered the internal decision to professionalise the cloud posture before it caused a major incident.

Approach

We ran an audit against the CIS AWS Benchmark covering IAM, logging, monitoring, key management, networking, storage and configuration of critical services. We complemented it with a review of existing IaC to assess the gap between deployed architecture and source code. Findings were cross-referenced with Well-Architected Framework best practices and with documented contractual requirements from the three largest clients. The report separated immediate configuration findings from structural findings.

Result

We identified 23 findings (5 critical, 9 high, 9 medium-low) and built a 90-day plan organised in three waves: immediate patching, IaC refactor and preventive guardrails. The organisation completed the plan in 11 weeks and established recurring quarterly reviews.

Lesson

A cloud architecture is not secured with a one-off project: it is secured with guardrails that prevent regressing to the previous state.

Time and effort

3-5 weeks audit · 11-13 weeks supported remediation · 100-140 consulting hours distributed.