When organizations migrate to the cloud, one of their first questions is: "How secure is my cloud environment?" But with three major cloud providers dominating the market—Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)—the security landscape becomes complex quickly. Each provider offers unique security features, compliance certifications, and configuration options that require specialized assessment approaches.
A comprehensive cloud security assessment must evaluate all three major providers while accounting for their architectural differences, security tools, and shared responsibility models. This guide explores how modern cloud security assessments cover AWS, Azure, and GCP, and what security domains matter most for each platform.
The Multi-Cloud Security Challenge
According to Synergy Research, AWS holds approximately 30% of the global enterprise cloud infrastructure services market share, Azure commands around 20%, and Google Cloud accounts for roughly 13% as of 2025. Many organizations don't limit themselves to a single provider—multi-cloud strategies are increasingly common, with companies leveraging AWS for compute-intensive workloads, Azure for Microsoft ecosystem integration, and GCP for data analytics and machine learning.
This multi-cloud reality demands security assessments that can evaluate posture across providers without requiring separate frameworks for each. Organizations need unified visibility into their security controls, regardless of whether their resources live in AWS S3 buckets, Azure Blob Storage, or Google Cloud Storage.
Core Security Domains Across All Cloud Providers
Effective cloud security assessments evaluate four critical domains that apply universally, regardless of provider:
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM represents the foundation of cloud security. Each provider implements IAM differently:
AWS IAM uses policies attached to users, groups, and roles, with permission boundaries and service control policies for organizational units. AWS offers over 200 services, each with granular permissions that can be configured using least-privilege principles.
Azure Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) integrates deeply with Microsoft's ecosystem, providing role-based access control (RBAC) at subscription, resource group, and individual resource levels. Azure's Privileged Identity Management (PIM) adds just-in-time access for elevated permissions.
GCP Cloud IAM simplifies permissions through a hierarchical structure of organizations, folders, and projects. GCP's permissions model emphasizes predefined roles that cover common use cases, though custom roles remain available for specific needs.
A thorough assessment examines whether organizations implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all privileged accounts, enforce least-privilege access across all three platforms, regularly audit and rotate credentials, and properly configure service accounts to minimize risk.
Configuration Hardening
Misconfiguration remains the leading cause of cloud security incidents. Security assessments must verify that organizations have properly hardened their cloud resources:
Network Security: Are security groups (AWS), network security groups (Azure), or firewall rules (GCP) properly configured? Do publicly accessible resources have legitimate business requirements? Are virtual private clouds (VPCs) properly segmented?
Storage Security: Are S3 buckets, Azure Blob Storage containers, and GCS buckets configured to prevent public access? Is encryption at rest enabled? Are access logs captured?
Compute Security: Are EC2 instances, Azure VMs, and Compute Engine instances running with least-privilege IAM roles? Are security patches applied promptly? Are unnecessary services disabled?
Each provider offers native tools to assess configuration compliance. AWS provides Security Hub and Config Rules, Azure offers Security Center and Policy, and GCP features the Security Command Center. Effective assessments verify not just that these tools are enabled, but that findings are actively remediated.
Logging and Monitoring
"You can't secure what you can't see" applies especially in cloud environments where resources can be provisioned in minutes. Security assessments evaluate whether organizations have comprehensive visibility into their cloud activities:
AWS CloudTrail logs API calls across AWS services, providing an audit trail of who did what and when. Combined with Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection and AWS Config for configuration tracking, AWS offers robust monitoring capabilities.
Azure Monitor centralizes logging across Azure resources, while Azure Sentinel provides security information and event management (SIEM) capabilities. Azure Activity Logs track control plane operations, while diagnostic logs capture data plane activities.
GCP Cloud Logging (formerly Stackdriver) aggregates logs from all GCP services, while the Security Command Center provides centralized visibility into security findings. GCP's integration with Chronicle, Google's cloud-native SIEM, offers advanced threat detection.
Assessments verify that critical logs are captured, retained for appropriate periods (often 90 days minimum for compliance), and actively monitored for suspicious activity. Organizations should have automated alerting configured for high-risk events like IAM changes, security group modifications, or unusual data access patterns.
Incident Response Capabilities
When security incidents occur, response speed determines impact. Cloud security assessments evaluate whether organizations can effectively detect, investigate, and respond to threats:
Do teams have playbooks for common cloud security incidents like credential compromise, unauthorized data access, or resource hijacking? Are incident response tools configured and tested? Can the organization quickly identify affected resources and isolate compromised systems?
AWS offers automated response capabilities through Security Hub integrations and Lambda functions. Azure provides automated workflows through Logic Apps and Azure Automation. GCP enables automated remediation through Cloud Functions and Security Command Center integrations.
Provider-Specific Security Considerations
While the four core domains apply universally, each provider has unique security features that assessments should evaluate:
AWS-Specific Security Features
AWS's maturity shows in its breadth of security services. Assessments should verify proper use of AWS Organizations for centralized governance, AWS Control Tower for guardrails across accounts, and AWS Systems Manager for patch management. AWS's shared responsibility model places significant configuration responsibility on customers, making thorough assessment critical.
Azure-Specific Security Features
Azure's deep integration with Microsoft 365 and on-premises Active Directory creates unique security considerations. Assessments should evaluate hybrid identity configurations, conditional access policies, and Azure Information Protection for data classification. Azure's Defender for Cloud provides integrated security posture management across multi-cloud environments.
GCP-Specific Security Features
GCP emphasizes encryption by default and offers unique security capabilities like VPC Service Controls for data exfiltration protection and BeyondCorp Enterprise for zero-trust access. Assessments should verify proper use of Organization Policy for guardrails and Access Transparency for audit logging of Google personnel access.
Compliance and Framework Alignment
Modern cloud security assessments align with industry-standard frameworks:
CIS Benchmarks provide detailed, prescriptive guidance for securely configuring AWS, Azure, and GCP. These benchmarks offer hundreds of specific recommendations covering IAM, networking, logging, and more.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides a risk-based approach to cloud security, organizing controls into Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover functions. The NIST framework complements CIS Benchmarks by providing strategic context for technical controls.
According to the Cloud Security Alliance, 78% of organizations prioritize NIST CSF, while 67% focus on CIS Benchmarks. Leading cloud security assessments map findings to both frameworks, providing compliance context alongside technical recommendations.
The Shared Responsibility Model
Understanding the shared responsibility model is critical for accurate cloud security assessment. While cloud providers secure the infrastructure (physical data centers, networking, hypervisors), customers secure their data, applications, and configurations.
This responsibility split varies by service model:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Customers manage operating systems, applications, and data. Assessment scope includes VM configuration, patching, and application security.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): Providers manage operating systems; customers manage applications and data. Assessments focus on application security and data protection.
Software as a Service (SaaS): Providers manage most security; customers manage access controls and data classification. Assessments verify proper IAM and data governance.
Effective cloud security assessments clearly delineate provider and customer responsibilities, ensuring organizations understand exactly what they must secure.
Moving from Assessment to Action
A comprehensive multi-cloud security assessment should deliver:
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Cloud Maturity Score: A quantified assessment of security posture across all evaluated providers, typically scored from 0-100% and classified into tiers (Initial, Developing, Defined, Managed, Optimizing).
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Framework Alignment: Clear mapping of current controls to CIS Benchmarks and NIST CSF, showing exactly which controls are implemented, partially implemented, or missing.
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Prioritized Remediation Roadmap: Actionable recommendations ranked by risk and effort, enabling teams to address critical gaps first.
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Implementation Guidance: Links to specific documentation, configuration guides, and best practices for remediating identified gaps.
Conclusion
Cloud security assessments must account for the unique architectures, security tools, and configuration options of AWS, Azure, and GCP while maintaining a unified framework for evaluation. By assessing IAM, configuration hardening, logging and monitoring, and incident response capabilities across all three providers, organizations gain comprehensive visibility into their multi-cloud security posture.
Whether your organization uses a single cloud provider or a multi-cloud strategy, regular security assessments identify gaps before attackers do. The key is choosing an assessment approach that evaluates your actual cloud stack against industry frameworks while providing actionable remediation guidance.
Ready to benchmark your cloud security posture? The Interactive Cloud Security Self-Assessment (iCSAT) evaluates your IAM, configuration, and monitoring maturity across AWS, Azure, or GCP in just 5-7 minutes, delivering instant results with a personalized remediation roadmap.
