Assessing the Top Data Security Risks in AWS Environments

A research-based perspective from Cyera Research Labs on the most critical challenges organizations face in securing data across AWS enviorments.‍

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a secure, resilient, and highly scalable cloud foundation trusted by organizations worldwide.
As with any powerful platform, the way services are configured and data is managed plays a critical role in maintaining a strong security posture.

Cyera’s 2025 telemetry and research highlight the most common data security challenges organizations encounter when operating in AWS environments from misconfigurations, oversights, and gaps in customer implementation, areas where organizations often benefit from additional visibility and automation.

To address this need, Cyera Research Labs has released a new publication:
“Top 10 Notable Data Security Risks in AWS.”

This paper is grounded in telemetry collected from real enterprise environments and reflects the nuanced, operational risks that arise when data security is abstracted across services such as S3, RDS, EC2, IAM, and Secrets Manager.

Key Insights from the Report

Rather than focusing on hypothetical threat scenarios, the report surfaces empirical, evidence-based risks that are frequently observed but often overlooked. Among the findings:

• Sensitive data stored unencrypted in RDS instances
  
• IAM misconfigurations that expose entire data services to the public or to unintended roles
  
• Secrets and credentials stored in plaintext, including usernames and passwords left in unprotected volumes
  
• Non-compliant data flows, such as external organizations accessing sensitive cloud storage in violation of policy
  
• Inconsistent logging and monitoring, limiting auditability and response in the event of a breach
  

Each risk is clearly described, including how it manifests in practice, its implications, and why conventional controls often fail to address it adequately.

About Cyera Research Labs

This analysis is the product of Cyera Research Labs, the Data & AI Security Research arm of Cyera, which is composed of elite researchers and subject matter experts focused on advancing the security of cloud and AI-driven data environments.

Leveraging Cyera’s comprehensive visibility into how data is created, accessed, and modified across customer environments, the lab delivers actionable research to help organizations understand emerging threats, secure sensitive information, and maintain control over their data and AI assets.

With a commitment to empirical analysis, Cyera Research Labs offers the strategic and operational clarity required to make informed, risk-aware decisions in today’s complex data security landscape.

Why This Research Matters

As AWS adoption deepens, many organizations maintain an overreliance on preventive security models and static configurations that do not reflect how data is actually used. This paper provides a data-centric viewpoint, highlighting real security issues rooted in day-to-day operations-where policy meets practice.

By translating telemetry into insight, Cyera Research Labs seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical cloud governance and the operational reality of securing data at scale.

Access the Full Report

Security leaders, cloud architects, and data protection teams are encouraged to review the complete findings to better align their AWS strategies with the realities of modern data risk.

📥 Download the research paper to gain a deeper understanding of the top data security risks in AWS-and how they may be impacting your environment.

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