So You Inherited an AWS Account

Many engineers have found themselves in the unenviable position of being handed the keys to an AWS environment with absolutely no explanation of its contents, documentation, or training. Whether an employee leaves the company, teams are restructured, or your company acquires another, you will need to quickly audit the account and get up to speed on its operation. Even worse, many of these inherited accounts are running production infrastructure that must be kept running during the transition period. Now that you’re responsible for this account, you will also be responsible for keeping it secure.

There is a wealth of documentation, training, guides, and other resources available online to learn about security in AWS cloud environments. But many of those resources assume that you are either building an account from scratch, were intimately involved in building the account from its inception, or can take great liberty in applying destructive changes. In our case, the reality is that you’re likely staring at eight years of accumulated infrastructure with absolutely no idea of what’s running or how to make changes without causing a production outage.

I’ve written this guide to help you filter through the mess, isolate the changes you need to make, and start to tame your environment. While I’ll assume that you have AWS experience, we’ll start with the security basics…