Learn cloud security — a hands-on roadmap, not a reading list.
Cloud security feels huge, and most courses are slides you forget by Friday. This is the opposite: a clear path from zero to job-ready, where every step is a real lab you do in a real AWS console. Your first one is free.
Who this roadmap is for
No security or cloud background required — pick the one that sounds like you.
Complete beginners
Never touched AWS or security? Stage 1 assumes nothing — you'll be doing real labs from day one.
Developers & IT pros
Already technical? Add the cloud-security skills employers test for, with a portfolio of labs to prove them.
Career switchers
Moving into cloud or security from another field? This is the hands-on path from zero to job-ready.
From zero to job-ready, one lab at a time
Four stages. Each maps to a set of hands-on labs you can launch right now.
- 01Beginner labs~1–2 weeks
Cloud Security Foundations
Lock down the basics attackers go for first — and stop being scared of the AWS console.
- IAM least-privilege & policy analysis
- Find & fix public S3 exposure
- Security groups & network basics
- Turn on and actually read CloudTrail
- Root / MFA hardening & KMS basics
- 02Intermediate labs~2–3 weeks
Detect & Defend
Spot and stop an attack inside a live AWS account.
- Trigger & triage threat-detection findings
- Hunt threats in VPC flow logs
- Auto-remediate misconfig with Config
- Exploit & contain an IMDS / SSRF flaw
- Vulnerability scanning & secrets exposure
- 03Advanced labs~3–4 weeks
Attack, Detect, Respond
Run a full breach-and-incident-response the way a real engineer does.
- Multi-tier breach + incident response
- Privilege-escalation chains (and detection)
- Write & validate detection rules
- Container / Kubernetes security
- CloudTrail forensics & timeline reconstruction
- 04SOC track~2 weeks
Round out the SOC — SIEM & SOAR
Complete the blue-team picture: detection at scale and automated response.
- Detection engineering & rule tuning
- Log analysis & threat hunting
- Automated response playbooks
- Alert enrichment & case workflows
Practice without fear — no account, no bill
The biggest reason people stall on cloud security is fear of running up an AWS bill or breaking something real. You won't. Every lab runs in a managed, isolated environment in your browser — you never touch your own AWS account, there's nothing to set up, and when you're done it's wiped clean. Experiment freely; that's how it sticks.
Where this roadmap gets you
Finish it and you can do the day-to-day work of these roles — and talk through real scenarios in an interview, not just recite definitions.
New to all this? Start with the blog for free walkthroughs, then jump into Stage 1.
Start Stage 1 — free
Your first cloud security lab is on us. No account, no setup — just a browser.