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Playlist - Cloud security, 1 hour

Eight reads in order, ~60 minutes total. By the end you have working mental models for the four pillars of cloud security: shared responsibility, identity, network isolation, and data protection. You'll know enough to read an architecture diagram and identify the biggest security risks.

The reads, in order

  1. Shared responsibility model (~4 min) Where the cloud provider's job ends and yours begins. Foundational; every other security decision depends on this.

  2. IAM explained (~8 min) Authentication vs authorization. Identities, roles, policies. RBAC vs ABAC. Why IAM is the source of most cloud breaches.

  3. VPC explained (~6 min) Private network isolation. Subnets, security groups, NACLs, NAT, IGW. The network layer of defense.

  4. TLS and HTTPS (~6 min) Encryption in transit, certificate authorities, the TLS handshake. The "lock icon" demystified.

  5. Identity and IAM topic index (~5 min) Cross-pillar IAM coverage: concepts, comparisons, deep-dives, hands-on, certs. Use as a jumping-off point if you want to drill in.

  6. Architecture pattern: zero-trust architecture (~12 min) The "never trust, always verify" model. Identity provider + policy engine + per-call authorization.

  7. Service comparison: security tools (~10 min) AWS vs Azure vs GCP security service mapping (GuardDuty / Defender / Security Command Center, etc.). Recognize the tools in each cloud.

  8. AWS Security Specialty (SCS-C02) fact sheet (~10 min) The cert that goes deepest on cloud security. Even if you don't take it, the fact-sheet is the densest reference for AWS-specific security mechanisms.

What you can do after this playlist

  • Read a cloud architecture diagram and identify the security perimeter, where IAM applies, and what's encrypted at rest vs in transit.
  • Articulate the difference between identity-based and network-based access controls (and why modern designs use both).
  • Recognize the security service in each of the three major clouds and what it does.
  • Discuss zero-trust beyond the buzzword: identity-aware, policy-driven, continuous re-evaluation.
  • Find the right deep-dive for any specific cloud-security question.

Next steps

If you want to build: - Implement zero-trust security - hands-on lab - Set up a monitoring stack - includes security observability

If you want to go deeper: - Security topic index - everything in one place - Architecture pattern: data-pipeline-etl - data security in motion - Compliance guides - SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, FedRAMP

If you want a cert: - AWS SCS-C02 - Azure AZ-500 - GCP Cloud Security Engineer - Security Engineer roadmap - CISSP for the broader / managerial security cert