Security Guide

AWS Compute Security Best Practices

AWS Compute security best practices, checklist, and configuration guide. Protect your compute resources with expert-vetted security recommendations.

Overview

AWS compute services power your applications — EC2 instances, Lambda functions, containers, and batch jobs. Securing compute means protecting the instances themselves (OS patching, IMDSv2), controlling how they are accessed (security groups, IAM roles), and ensuring data processed in memory is protected (encryption-at-host). Misconfigurations here are the most common entry point: open SSH/RDP ports, overly permissive IAM instance profiles, and unencrypted volumes.

Compute Security Checklist (8 items)

  1. 1Use IMDSv2 to prevent SSRF credential theft (enforce at instance launch)
  2. 2Right-size instances — most workloads use <30% of allocated CPU
  3. 3Use Spot or Reserved Instances for 50-72% cost savings
  4. 4Enable termination protection on production instances
  5. 5Tag all instances for cost allocation and governance
  6. 6Rotate EC2 key pairs every 90 days — never share private keys
  7. 7Use EC2 Instance Connect instead of long-lived SSH keys
  8. 8Enable EBS encryption by default in every region

AWS Compute Services Covered

EC2LambdaECSEKSElastic BeanstalkLightsailAuto ScalingECRBatchFargate

FAQ

What are the most important Compute security best practices?▼

Use IMDSv2 to prevent SSRF credential theft (enforce at instance launch). Right-size instances — most workloads use <30% of allocated CPU. Use Spot or Reserved Instances for 50-72% cost savings. These are the highest-impact actions you can take today.

How do I audit my AWS Compute security?▼

Pavora automatically audits 19+ Compute services across your AWS account. It checks for misconfigurations, missing encryption, over-privileged access, and compliance violations mapped to 41 frameworks.

How often should I review security configurations?▼

Continuous monitoring is ideal. At minimum, run a full security audit monthly and after any major infrastructure change. Pavora provides continuous scanning with instant results.

Related guides

StorageDatabaseSecurityNetworkManagementAnalyticsIntegrationMigrationDeveloper ToolsMachine LearningEnd User ComputingIoT

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Pavora continuously checks all 10+ Compute services against these best practices — and 41 compliance frameworks.

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