--- title: "Cloud Security Assessment: Six Checks Before Year-End" description: What a cloud security assessment checks on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, what to fix before year-end, and when to bring in help. For mid-market IT leaders. image: https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/cloud-security-assessment-six-checks-featured-1774x887.jpg --- [Skip to Content](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/cloud-security-assessment-mid-market#body) [![Link](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/Ontrac%20Solution%20Landing%20Page/Link.svg "Link")](https://ontracsolutions.net/) Toggle Menu - [Home](https://ontracsolutions.net) - [Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/services) Toggle children for Services - [Agentic AI & Autonomous Systems](https://ontracsolutions.net/agentic-ai-and-autonomous-systems) - [Cloud Architecture & Automation](https://ontracsolutions.net/cloud-architecture-and-automation) - [Staff Augmentation](https://ontracsolutions.net/staff-augmentation) - [Product Design & Engineering](https://ontracsolutions.net/product-design-engineering) - [Elite Technical Talent](https://ontracsolutions.net/elite-technical-talent) - [Engineering Talent](https://ontracsolutions.net/engineering-talent) - [HubSpot Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubspot-services) - [Professional Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/professional-services) - [Innovation Hub](https://ontracsolutions.net/innovation-hub) - [Solutions](https://ontracsolutions.net/solutions) Toggle children for Solutions - [Scout | Remote Hiring Defense](https://ontracsolutions.net/scout-remote-hiring-defense) - [AI](https://ontracsolutions.net/genai) - [Cloud Solutions](https://ontracsolutions.net/cloud-solutions) - [Data Analytics](https://ontracsolutions.net/data-analytics) - [FinOps](https://ontracsolutions.net/finops) - [Product Design & Development](https://ontracsolutions.net/product-design-development) - [About](https://ontracsolutions.net/about-us) - [News](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news) - [Careers](https://ontracsolutions.net/careers) - [Contact us](https://ontracsolutions.net/contact-us) [back to blog](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news) [Cloud](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/topic/cloud) # Cloud Security Assessment: Six Checks Before Year-End Read Time **7 mins** | Written by: Vinayak Bhagat [mailto:?subject=Cloud%20Security%20Assessment%3A%20Six%20Checks%20Before%20Year-End&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Fcloud-security-assessment-mid-market](mailto:?subject=Cloud%20Security%20Assessment%3A%20Six%20Checks%20Before%20Year-End&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Fcloud-security-assessment-mid-market) ![Four IT professionals in a Chicago office review a wall screen reading Six Checks Before Year-End with six shield icons, planning a cloud security assessment](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/cloud-security-assessment-six-checks-featured-1774x887.jpg) **The bottom line:** Most mid-market cloud estates were never designed. They grew one project at a time. A cloud security assessment checks the whole estate in a few weeks and tells you what to fix first. The timing matters. Teams thin out in December and change freezes arrive. Fix the dangerous things now, and take the rest into next year's budget. Quick Answer A cloud security assessment checks six things in every AWS account, Azure subscription and Google Cloud project: who can administer it, what the internet can reach, how data is protected and restored, whether servers are patched, whether anyone would notice an attack, and whether a written standard is checked automatically. You end with owners and a fix order. ## Who needs one You are a good fit if any of these sound familiar: - A customer questionnaire or your insurer asked how exposed your cloud is - You run more than one provider, or inherited accounts in an acquisition - Nobody has a full list of your accounts and subscriptions - A test environment quietly became production One point trips people up. Your provider secures its data centers, not your settings. [Every major provider's shared responsibility model](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/shared-responsibility) leaves your data, your identities and your configurations with you. ## What a good assessment checks - **Identity.** Who can administer each account, and do all of them use multi-factor sign-in? Look for admins nobody can name and keys nobody has used. - **Network.** Every public endpoint, with a reason to exist. Remote management ports open to any address are the top finding. - **Data.** Encryption, public-access settings on storage, and a restore test. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a backup. - **Patching.** On virtual machines and containers, the operating system and runtime are yours to patch. Start with anything internet-facing. - **Detection.** Audit logs on in every account and region, and a named person who reads the alerts, including at weekends. - **Baseline.** One written standard per provider, such as the [CIS Foundations Benchmarks](https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks), checked by a tool so fixes do not drift back. ## What to do this week - **List every account.** Every AWS account, Azure subscription and Google Cloud project, including old projects and acquisitions. - **Check your admins.** Make the list short and named, with multi-factor sign-in on every one. - **Close open management ports.** SSH or RDP open to the whole internet should be gone by Friday. - **Switch on the provider's own tools.** AWS, Azure and Google all have posture and threat detection services. Turn them on everywhere and name a reader. - **Run one restore test.** Pick your most important database and prove you can get it back. Grant read-only access for the review and remove it afterwards. An assessment looks; it changes nothing. Free Worksheet The Cloud Security Assessment Worksheet A page per check with an evidence box, an owner and a fix-by date, plus a year-end fix-order page to take to leadership. ## What to fix first - **Exposure, before year-end.** Admins without multi-factor sign-in, open management ports, public storage that should be private, and internet-facing servers missing a critical fix. - **Blind spots, next.** Logging gaps, detection switched off, alerts nobody reads, and backups never restored. - **Drift, in the new year.** Unused keys, broad roles, missing owner tags and the automated baseline. This becomes your costed plan for next year. ## How Ontrac helps - **[Cloud security assessment](https://ontracsolutions.net/cloud-solutions):** we review every account on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud and hand you a ranked fix list with owners. - **Fix sprints:** our engineers close the exposure tier with your team before the holidays. - **Patching help:** we find what is out of date on the servers you run yourself, patch it with your team and verify the fix. - **Baseline setup:** we pick one benchmark per provider, switch on the checks and tag every resource with an owner. Running a few accounts on one provider, with the posture tool on and someone reading it? You can do this yourselves with the worksheet. Owner tags also help your bill: see [our FinOps guide](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/finops-cut-cloud-costs-without-slowing-engineering). [Book a call with us](https://ontracsolutions.net/book-a-call) ## Frequently Asked Questions Is my cloud provider responsible for security? Partly. The provider secures the underlying infrastructure. You stay responsible for your data, identities and settings, and for patching any server you run yourself. How long does a cloud security assessment take? For most mid-market estates, a few weeks. Listing accounts and checking admins takes days; the full review and retest take longer. Which framework should we use? One configuration benchmark per provider, such as CIS, for the detailed checks. Use the [NIST Cybersecurity Framework](https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework) to report results to leadership. More ## Keep reading → [Cloud Migration for Mid-Market](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/cloud-migration-mid-market-roadmap): agree the security baseline before the move. → [AWS vs Azure vs GCP](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/aws-vs-azure-vs-gcp-mid-market): read this before you add a second provider. Sources: AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud shared responsibility documentation, CIS Benchmarks, NIST CSF 2.0. General guidance, not legal or insurance advice. This post reflects information available as of November 6, 2026. ## Framework Will Help You Grow Your Business With Little Effort. [Get Started](https://ontracsolutions.net/contact-us) ![](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/Vinayak-img.jpg) [mailto:vinayak@ontracsolutions.net](mailto:vinayak@ontracsolutions.net) ##### Vinayak Bhagat HubSpot & Marketing Automation Specialist at Ontrac Solutions Share the Love [mailto:?subject=Cloud%20Security%20Assessment%3A%20Six%20Checks%20Before%20Year-End&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Fcloud-security-assessment-mid-market](mailto:?subject=Cloud%20Security%20Assessment%3A%20Six%20Checks%20Before%20Year-End&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Fcloud-security-assessment-mid-market) You May Like These ## Related Articles ![PHP2Shell: What the Critical PHP Vulnerabilities Mean for Your Business and What to Do Today](https://ontracsolutions.net/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog%20header%201200x630.png?width=700&name=Blog%20header%201200x630.png) Cloud ### [PHP2Shell: What the Critical PHP Vulnerabilities Mean for Your Business and What to Do Today](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/ai-ready-data-how-to-build-the-data-foundation-first) Two critical PHP flaws (CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619) allow remote code execution. Here is how t... Keep Reading ![Cloud architect pointing at a wall screen titled The Four Gravity Tests, the framework for choosing between AWS, Azure and GCP at a mid-market company](https://ontracsolutions.net/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/aws-azure-gcp-four-gravity-tests-featured-2to1.jpg?width=700&name=aws-azure-gcp-four-gravity-tests-featured-2to1.jpg) Cloud ### [AWS vs Azure vs GCP for Mid-Market: How to Actually Choose](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/aws-vs-azure-vs-gcp-mid-market) AWS, Azure or Google Cloud? For a mid-market company the answer is fit, not features: four gravity t... Keep Reading ![Product team reviewing a wall screen titled The Five Handoffs, the model for combining user-centered design with cloud-native architecture in one pipeline](https://ontracsolutions.net/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/five-handoffs-ucd-cloud-native-featured-2to1.jpg?width=700&name=five-handoffs-ucd-cloud-native-featured-2to1.jpg) Cloud ### [How to Combine User-Centered Design and Cloud-Native Architecture: One Delivery Pipeline](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/user-centered-design-cloud-native-architecture) How to combine user-centered design with cloud-native architecture for a new digital product: five h... Keep Reading ![](https://ontracsolutions.net/hs-fs/hubfs/ogoni.png?width=16&height=18&name=ogoni.png) Meet Scout ## Scout Screens Candidates Before You Ever Pick Up the Phone Hiring fraud is quietly costing recruiting teams hours every week — fabricated resumes, spoofed identities, and candidates who don't exist. **Scout is Ontrac's** AI recruitment screening agent, built to catch the red flags before they cost you an interview. - Runs every applicant through a multi-point Trust Check before a human ever gets on a call - Builds a Trust Score that gives your team one clear, defensible read on a candidate - Flags risk in plain language, with the reasoning attached - Reduces wasted interview cycles and protects your hiring pipeline [See Scout in Action](https://ontracsolutions.net/scout-remote-hiring-defense) Trust check REQ-2291 JM Jordan M. Sr. Account Executive Reviewed Trust Score Identity and history signals check out 85/100 - Identity verification Passed - Resume consistency Passed - Employment history Review Scout's note: *"12-month gap between roles isn't addressed anywhere in the resume."* [![Ontrac Solutions](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/OntracSolutionsWhite.svg.svg "Ontrac Solutions")](https://ontracsolutions.net/) Sign up to searing weekly newsletter to get the latest updates ## Let's talk Business? #### Services - [Professional Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/professional-services) - [Staff Augmentation](https://ontracsolutions.net/staff-augmentation) - [Innovation Hub](https://ontracsolutions.net/innovation-hub) #### Contact Us [**inquire@ontracsolutions.net**](mailto:inquire@ontracsolutions.net) Have a question? Feel free to reach out. We love to hear from you! - - - - © 2026 Ontrac Solutions [Cookie Policy](https://ontracsolutions.net/cookie-policy) [Privacy Policy](https://ontracsolutions.net/privacy-policy) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Vinayak Bhagat", "url" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/author/vinayak" }, "dateModified" : "2026-11-06T13:30:00.811Z", "datePublished" : "2026-11-06T13:30:00.000Z", "headline" : "Cloud Security Assessment: Six Checks Before Year-End", "image" : [ "https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/cloud-security-assessment-six-checks-featured-1774x887.jpg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/cloud-security-assessment-mid-market", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/OntracSolutions-1-padded-50.png" } } } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "FAQPage", "mainEntity" : [ { "@type" : "Question", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "Partly. The provider secures the underlying infrastructure. You stay responsible for your data, identities and settings, and for patching any server you run yourself." }, "name" : "Is my cloud provider responsible for security?" }, { "@type" : "Question", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "For most mid-market estates, a few weeks. Listing accounts and checking admins takes days; the full review and retest take longer." }, "name" : "How long does a cloud security assessment take?" }, { "@type" : "Question", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "One configuration benchmark per provider, such as CIS, for the detailed checks. Use the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to report results to leadership." }, "name" : "Which framework should we use?" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@id" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/#organization", "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/logo.png" }, "name" : "Ontrac Solutions", "sameAs" : [ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/ontracsolutions" ], "url" : "https://ontracsolutions.net" } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@id" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/#localbusiness", "@type" : "LocalBusiness", "address" : { "@type" : "PostalAddress", "addressCountry" : "US", "addressLocality" : "Chicago", "addressRegion" : "IL", "postalCode" : "60611", "streetAddress" : "500 N Lake Shore Dr" }, "geo" : { "@type" : "GeoCoordinates", "latitude" : 41.8781, "longitude" : -87.6298 }, "image" : "https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/logo.png", "name" : "Ontrac Solutions", "openingHoursSpecification" : [ { "@type" : "OpeningHoursSpecification", "closes" : "17:00", "dayOfWeek" : [ "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday" ], "opens" : "09:00" } ], "priceRange" : "$$", "telephone" : "+1-872-285-5044", "url" : "https://ontracsolutions.net" } ```