Cloud penetration testing built for AWS and trusted by Australia’s leaders.

Cloud-native testing. AWS-specific expertise. Actionable insights that harden your security posture.

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Why Australian Organisations Trust RedBear

87%

of environments tested had at least one privilege escalation path

92%

of clients resolved critical issues within 30 days using our remediation

10+

years securing AWS-native environments across enterprise and government

100+

AWS environments tested across Australia and the APAC region

1%

of initial findings relate to misconfigured IAM policies or role assumptions

64%

of clients had at least one publicly exposed cloud service unintentionally

58%

of environments had S3 buckets with misconfigured or excessive access

95%

of clients report measurable improvements to cloud security posture within 90 days

100%

of tests delivered with executive-ready reporting and strategic remediation guidance

80%

of clients re-engage within 12 months for broader or follow-up testing

89%

of privilege escalation paths exploited overly permissive policies

93%

of tests uncovered at least one critical misconfiguration missed by prior assessments

100%

of tests conducted by senior, AWS-certified cloud security experts

76%

of clients adopt annual or bi-annual retesting as part of continuous assurance

RedBear’s credentials back our AWS-first approach, trusted by leading enterprises, public sector organisations, and critical infrastructure across ANZ.

  • AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner
  • Based in Australia, trusted by enterprise & government
  • Specialists in AWS-native environments
  • 10+ years securing cloud-first infrastructure
  • Hundreds of AWS environments tested across ANZ
  • Security-cleared consultants for regulated industries
  • DevSecOps aligned: We work with your pipeline, not against it
  • Trusted by ASX-listed companies, critical infrastructure, and startups
  • Remediation support included; We don’t just drop a report
  • Cloud-only focus; No legacy baggage
  • AWS Security, DevOps, and Solutions Architect certified team
  • Clear, actionable reports; built for both engineers and execs

What is Cloud Penetration Testing?

Cloud Penetration Testing is a simulated attack against your cloud environment, designed to expose misconfigurations, excessive permissions and risky access paths across your AWS services.

Unlike traditional penetration testing, which focuses on network and infrastructure, cloud pen testing dives into cloud-native layers: IAM roles, Lambda functions, S3 buckets, trust boundaries, metadata services, and more.

At RedBear, we go further, simulating real-world adversary behaviour to identify impact, not just theoretical risk.

What We Test

  • Persistence & Lateral Movement Vectors
  • CloudTrail & GuardDuty Configuration
  • Secrets Management & Parameter Store
  • CI/CD Pipelines & Deployment Credentials
  • Identity Federation & SSO Integrations
  • EBS Snapshot & AMI Permissions
  • CloudFront & CDN Security
  • RDS & Database Exposure
  • Data Residency & Cross-Region Replication Risks
  • Infrastructure-as-Code Security (CloudFormation/Terraform)
  • IAM Roles, Policies & Trust Relationships
  • S3 Bucket Access & Misconfiguration
  • Lambda Function Permissions & Injection Risks
  • KMS Key Misuse & Cryptographic Hygiene
  • Metadata Service Abuse / SSRF Attacks
  • API Gateway Exposure & Exploitation
  • Cross-Account Role Assumption
  • Serverless & Container Risks (EKS, Fargate)
  • Public vs Private Access, VPC Exposure
  • Logging, Monitoring & Detection Gaps

See exactly what your team will receive: clear findings, real attack paths, and prioritised remediation guidance.

What you will get:

  • Executive summary with risk ratings
  • Technical findings: how, where, why
  • Screenshots + proof of exploitation
  • Prioritised remediation plan
  • Guidance on fixing and hardening
  • Included retest and validation support

Use Cases

Here are the most common scenarios where AWS penetration testing delivers the greatest impact.

Annual/Quarterly Security Testing

Maintain continuous security assurance and help meet internal/external audit cycles.

Pre-Launch of New AWS Applications

Identify security gaps before go-live, across infrastructure, IAM, and APIs.

Regulatory & Compliance Requirements

Demonstrate testing and remediation aligned with ISO 27001, SOC 2, IRAP, CPS 234, and more.

Due Diligence Before Acquisitions or Mergers

Assess the security posture of target cloud environments before integration.

Cloud Migration or Re-Architecture Validation

Validate security before, during, or after moving workloads to AWS.

CISO & Board-Level Risk Assurance

Provide leadership with third-party validation of cloud security posture.

Third-Party Validation of Internal Security Controls

Validate the effectiveness of in-house security teams, guardrails, and automation.

Post-Incident or Breach Response Testing

Identify how the attacker got in (or could again), and close the gaps.

Security Maturity Baseline Assessment

Understand your cloud attack surface and how it evolves over time.

Before Signing or Renewing Major Enterprise Contracts

Prove your cloud security posture to clients with high trust or regulatory expectations.

IRAP/Essential Eight Uplift Initiatives

Meet requirements for Australian Government contracts and sensitive workloads.

PCI-DSS or Financial Services Compliance

Satisfy penetration testing requirements for payments, fintech, or banking workloads.

Cloud Security Skills Enablement for Internal Teams

Use test results as a hands-on training tool to upskill engineers and security staff.

Investor or Due Diligence Readiness (Pre-IPO or Capital Raise)

Demonstrate robust cyber maturity to boards, investors, and underwriters.

Operational Technology (OT) Cloud Integration Validation

Test AWS-integrated workloads tied to IoT, industrial, or SCADA systems.

Container Security and DevSecOps Pipeline Testing

Secure your CI/CD stack, build pipeline secrets, and orchestration misconfigurations.

Highly Sensitive Data Hosting

Validate environments designed for high-value data (health, legal, government).

Cross-Region or Multi-Account AWS Environments

Test complex cloud infrastructures with federation, trust paths, and third-party access.

Preparing for Managed Detection & Response (MDR/XDR) Integration

Ensure your detections are working before committing to full-service SOC providers.

Security Benchmarking Across Business Units or Subsidiaries

Compare and uplift cloud security posture across a portfolio or holding company.

Our Process

Scoping & Threat Modelling

We work closely with your team to define the scope: AWS accounts, services, environments, and regions. We align threat models to your architecture, data sensitivity, and business impact. Compliance requirements (ISO, SOC 2, IRAP, etc.) are embedded from day one.

Post-Exploitation & Impact

We assess what a successful attacker could actually achieve in your environment. This includes access to sensitive data, persistent access methods, and internal system exposure. Our impact analysis focuses on business risk, not just technical flaws.

Reporting & Remediation

You receive a comprehensive report with executive summaries, technical findings, and proof-of-exploit. Each issue includes a clear explanation, business impact, and prioritised remediation advice. We help your teams understand root causes and take immediate, actionable steps.

Recon & Enumeration

We map out your attack surface across services like S3, EC2, IAM, Lambda, and API Gateway. We identify exposed endpoints, misconfigured policies, and internet-facing assets. Cloud-native enumeration techniques uncover weak trust relationships and privilege boundaries.

Exploitation

We use simulated adversary techniques to test for real-world exploitability. We look for privilege escalation paths, exposed data, lateral movement vectors, and role misuse. All tests are non-destructive, carefully controlled, and aligned with agreed rules of engagement.

Retest

Once you've addressed the findings, we re-engage to validate your fixes. We confirm that vulnerabilities are closed and no regressions have occurred. This provides assurance to internal stakeholders, auditors, and regulators.

Trusted By

Why RedBear?

RedBear is an independent, Australian-owned company specialising in Cloud and Cybersecurity services. As pioneers in the Australian cloud market since the AWS Sydney launch in 2012, RedBear has a proven history of helping organisations migrate to, manage, and secure their cloud environments.

Clients value RedBear for being skilled, proactive, and flexible. They see RedBear not as a vendor, but as a trusted partner who always keeps their business goals at the centre.

Proven Track Record

First-to-market MSSP in the AWS space, with niche certifications and one of only two AWS Security Incident Response Specialists in Australia.

Leading Architecture

Automation-first design and a recognised MSSP framework that sets the benchmark for efficiency, scalability, and modern security delivery.

Proprietary Technology

A unique cloud platform that creates measurable differentiation, delivering efficiency for clients and enhancing engagement with AWS and partners.

Strategic Partnerships

Deep AWS alignment, recognition by the Australian Federal Government, and a scalable business model designed to support lasting partnerships.

Trusted Advisory

A long-term partner to CIOs and executives, acting as an extension of internal teams and providing clear business cases for security investment.

Credible Client Base

Enterprise, public sector, and NGO clients with recognisable names and strong case studies that demonstrate real outcomes and trusted delivery.

Delivery Excellence

Consistently high-quality outcomes across cloud assessment, strategy, migration, integration, optimisation, security, and ongoing management.

Security Focused

Cloud and cybersecurity solutions designed with security at the forefront, reducing risk, ensuring compliance, and strengthening client confidence.

Cloud-Native Approach

Solutions developed directly in the cloud to maximise agility, scalability, and innovation, delivering business advantage faster and more securely.

Results Driven

Deep business and technology expertise that reduces risk, accelerates delivery, and ensures clients achieve measurable outcomes with confidence.

Built for Reliability

Automation at scale with 300+ bots and a quality-first approach, ensuring client environments remain resilient, stable, and ready for demand.

AWS Specialisation

Solely focused on AWS security, penetration testing, and rapid incident response, providing unmatched expertise in cloud-first environments.

Sovereign Service

All your data stays in Australia, and all our team members are Australia-based.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes cloud penetration testing different from traditional infrastructure or network pen testing?

Traditional penetration testing focuses on web applications, networks, servers, and known vulnerabilities. Cloud penetration testing is fundamentally different. It targets cloud-native misconfigurations, IAM roles, trust relationships, and surfaces that attackers exploit in AWS. It is aligned with the AWS shared responsibility model, which means we test your actual control plane: permissions, services, identity paths, and data exposure. At Red Bear, we go beyond checklists. We simulate real attack paths, test privilege escalation in IAM, and uncover risks unique to AWS, containers, serverless, and multi-account environments.

Our penetration testing is built to be non-disruptive, risk-aware, and production-safe. We align with AWS testing guidelines and operate under strict rules of engagement, agreed with your team during scoping. Testing is rate-limited, monitored in real time, and designed to avoid any impact on uptime or user experience. We avoid high-risk or destructive operations and carefully simulate exploitation using controlled, read-only, or sandboxed techniques. You get real-world attack simulation with none of the risk of downtime.

No. We design our testing to be safe in live environments, with zero impact to critical workloads. We use read-only enumeration, simulate actions without disrupting services, and avoid denial-of-service or resource-intensive techniques. Testing is coordinated with your team, scoped tightly, and scheduled during low-risk periods when necessary. In our experience of testing hundreds of AWS environments, uptime has never been compromised. We understand production sensitivity and we test accordingly.

Yes. This is what sets Red Bear apart. We don’t just look for theoretical risks. We emulate real attacker behaviour, including techniques used by ransomware groups, insider threats, and state-backed actors. Our tests simulate lateral movement, chained privilege escalation, data exfiltration, and persistence; all aligned to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK. We show you not just where you’re vulnerable, but how attackers could exploit those paths in the real world, and what it would cost you.

We specialise in testing IAM escalation and privilege chaining, the most common and dangerous attack path in AWS. Our team maps your IAM trust relationships, policies, service-linked roles, and external identities. We identify how attackers could escalate privileges through policy chaining, cross-account role assumptions, over-permissive functions, and overlooked legacy permissions. We go beyond surface-level findings to simulate how attackers could abuse cloud logic to gain full control, all without setting off alarms.

We frequently uncover critical cloud-specific issues that legacy pen testers miss — such as over-permissive IAM roles, exposed S3 buckets, excessive Lambda privileges, KMS key misuse, open API gateways, and misconfigured role trusts. Many environments also have blind spots in logging, drift in CloudFormation stacks, or secrets exposed in Parameter Store. Our AWS-native focus means we catch not just isolated flaws, but how these issues chain together to create real attack paths with business impact.

Yes, we do. It is a core part of our approach. We simulate what an attacker could actually do after gaining access: access sensitive data, move laterally across accounts, install backdoors, or escalate privileges further. Our reports include impact summaries, and business context, so you don’t just get “what’s wrong” but also “what it leads to.” This helps CISOs, engineers, and boards understand real-world risk, not just technical vulnerabilities.

Yes. Our methodology aligns with MITRE ATT&CK for Cloud, CREST penetration testing frameworks, and the OWASP Cloud-Native Top 10. This ensures we are testing the most relevant, high-impact risks using globally recognised standards. We also incorporate best practices from NIST, CIS Benchmarks, and AWS security guidance. This gives your business credible, defensible results that are suitable for compliance, reporting, and leadership assurance.

Yes. We offer flexible, scoped engagements that fit your environment and risk appetite. You can limit testing to specific AWS accounts, services, workloads, or regions, such as non-production accounts or newly launched apps. This is ideal for targeted assessments, budget control, or phased testing. We can also expand later as needed, helping you prioritise the highest-risk areas first and build toward broader cloud security assurance over time.

For a typical AWS environment (2–5 accounts, standard services), the full engagement takes around 8–14 business days. This includes scoping, threat modelling, testing, reporting, and retesting. Smaller scopes can be faster, while complex or highly regulated environments may take longer. You will get a detailed timeline during onboarding, and we’ll keep you updated throughout the process. We move fast, but always with the rigour and depth needed to deliver meaningful results.

Absolutely. Red Bear is built for multi-account, multi-region AWS estates, including cross-account role analysis, organisation-wide trust boundaries, and federated IAM flows. We simulate lateral movement and privilege escalation across environments, the way attackers would. Whether you are running a startup or managing a global enterprise with dozens of AWS accounts, we will test your cloud the way real-world attackers see it: as one big interconnected system.

Yes. This is one of our biggest strengths. We don’t just hand over a report. We provide clear remediation guidance, executive debriefs, and engineer-ready advice, with prioritised actions based on risk. We also help your teams understand root causes, not just symptoms. Optional retesting is included, so you can confirm fixes and demonstrate measurable improvement. Our goal is to make remediation fast, effective, and strategic.

Yes. Red Bear tests Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) templates like CloudFormation and Terraform to identify security misconfigurations before they’re deployed into AWS. We scan for overly permissive IAM policies, insecure defaults, open security groups, misconfigured storage, and hardcoded secrets; all common IaC risks. By shifting security left, we help your teams catch issues early in the SDLC, improving DevSecOps maturity and reducing production vulnerabilities. This is especially valuable for regulated industries, CI/CD pipelines, and high-change environments.

Yes. Our methodology and reporting align with a wide range of compliance frameworks, including IRAP (for Australian government workloads), ISO 27001, SOC 2, and APRA CPS 234. We understand the nuances of regulated industries, from data sovereignty to control validation, and can tailor our reporting to satisfy auditors and governance teams. Red Bear has experience working with federal agencies, ASX-listed companies, financial services providers, and global SaaS vendors requiring third-party validation of cloud security controls.

Yes. Many of our clients opt for annual, bi-annual, or quarterly penetration testing as part of their ongoing cloud security assurance. We offer flexible engagement models that fit CISO roadmaps, board reporting cycles, and compliance milestones. Regular testing helps track improvements, validate changes, and support cyber resilience reporting. Red Bear becomes an extension of your security program, helping you stay ahead of threats and demonstrate proactive risk management to stakeholders.

Yes, and it’s included in most engagements. Once you have remediated the identified issues, we conduct a targeted retest to validate that vulnerabilities have been properly resolved. We confirm that exploits no longer work, permissions are corrected, and no regressions have occurred. This provides closure for internal teams, evidence for regulators, and assurance for executives that cloud risks have been effectively addressed. We also support clients through remediation planning and advisory, not just the test.

We deliver findings through a dual-layered report and debrief process. Technical teams receive detailed exploit paths, risk context, and remediation steps, while executives get clear summaries and business impact narratives. This bridges the gap between security and business, helping you communicate risk clearly to boards, auditors, and operational teams. Our approach ensures findings are understood, acted on, and prioritised effectively across all levels of your organisation.

Yes. Red Bear supports integration with your DevSecOps workflows, including export-ready formats for Jira, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, or custom ticketing systems. We deliver technical findings with clear metadata; title, severity, remediation steps, and references, so they can be converted into actionable tasks without manual rework. This ensures vulnerabilities are triaged and remediated quickly, and remediation progress is trackable across teams. We support both manual and automated handoff options to suit your environment.

RedBear IT is one of a select few AWS MSSP partners. In fact, RedBear was a launch partner in 2021. RedBear has been performing penetration testing in the AWS and for applications running on the AWS Cloud since 2016.

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