Welcome, Cloud Defender

You just made one of the best investments in your security career. This course takes you from CSPM fundamentals to building audit-ready security programs across AWS, Azure, and GCP.

How the Course Works

Sequential, hands-on learning. Each lesson builds on the last — start with the shared responsibility model, finish by building a complete compliance-ready CSPM program. Lessons unlock in order.

What You'll Need

• Cloud accounts — Free-tier AWS, Azure, and GCP accounts are sufficient

• Terminal — Bash/Zsh with aws-cli, az, and gcloud installed

• Tools — Prowler, ScoutSuite, Checkov, tfsec, OPA (installed during the course)

• Editor — VS Code with Terraform and YAML extensions recommended

The Curriculum

Certificate

Complete every lesson → earn your CSPM Mastery certificate.

Drop questions in the Community Chat. Let's build. 🔒

If you've been in cloud security for any amount of time, you've seen the pattern: the breach wasn't a zero-day — it was a misconfiguration.

After years as a DevSecOps engineer running CSPM programs across production environments, I can tell you the same five misconfigurations show up in nearly every audit. Here's what they are and how to detect them fast.

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1. Overly Permissive IAM Policies

The classic. "Action": "*", "Resource": "*" in production.

Detection (AWS):

prowler aws --checks iam_policy_no_full_access_to_star

The fix: Enforce least privilege with permission boundaries and SCPs at the org level.

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2. Public Storage Buckets

S3 buckets, Azure Blob containers, and GCS buckets with public ACLs or permissive bucket policies.

Detection (multi-cloud with ScoutSuite):

scout suite aws --services s3
scout suite azure --services storageaccounts
scout suite gcp --services cloudstorage

The fix: Enable S3 Block Public Access at the account level, set AllowBlobPublicAccess: false on Azure storage accounts, and enforce uniform bucket-level access on GCS.

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3. Unencrypted Data at Rest

Default encryption exists on most cloud services now — but teams still create resources that bypass it.

Detection (Checkov on IaC):

checkov -d ./terraform/ --check CKV_AWS_19  # S3 default encryption
checkov -d ./terraform/ --check CKV_AZURE_43  # Storage account encryption

The fix: Enforce encryption via organization policies (GCP) or SCPs (AWS). Never make it optional.

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4. Security Groups Allowing 0.0.0.0/0 on Management Ports

SSH (22) and RDP (3389) open to the internet. Still everywhere.

Detection (AWS CLI):

aws ec2 describe-security-groups \
  --filters "Name=ip-permission.cidr,Values=0.0.0.0/0" \
  --query 'SecurityGroups[*].{ID:GroupId,Name:GroupName}'

The fix: Use SSM Session Manager (AWS), Azure Bastion, or IAP tunnels (GCP) instead of exposing management ports.

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5. Missing Logging & Monitoring

CloudTrail disabled, Azure Activity Log not forwarded, GCP Audit Logs not exported. When the breach happens, you have no forensic trail.

Detection:

prowler aws --checks cloudtrail_multi_region_enabled

The fix: Enable multi-region CloudTrail, forward Azure Activity Logs to Log Analytics, export GCP audit logs to BigQuery or a SIEM.

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The Pattern

These aren't exotic attacks. They're configuration hygiene. CSPM exists because manual checks don't scale — you need automated, continuous scanning that catches drift before an attacker does.

I teach the complete approach — from zero to audit-ready across AWS, Azure, and GCP — with the exact CLI commands, Terraform modules, policy templates, and CI/CD pipeline configs you need. Every lesson is hands-on with production-grade tooling: Prowler, ScoutSuite, Checkov, tfsec, and OPA.

If you're serious about cloud security, check out the course.