AWS Certified Security — Specialty

AWS Certified Security — Specialty Exam Guide (Official PDF)

Read the exam guide cover to cover. Twice. The objective wording is more precise than any third-party material.

AWS Skill Builder — Security Specialty learning plan

Free AWS-published path with official practice questions. Use this as your primary structured material.

Stephane Maarek — Ultimate AWS Certified Security Specialty (Udemy)

Solid, well-paced. Best paired with hands-on AWS access so you can replicate the IAM, KMS, and VPC labs.

Adrian Cantrill — AWS Certified Security Specialty

Deeper than Stephane on networking and KMS. The right course if you want to genuinely understand the material rather than memorize.

Tutorials Dojo — SCS-C02 Practice Tests

The closest practice exam to real difficulty. Use review mode aggressively.

AWS Security Reference Architecture (SRA)

The reference architecture for organization-wide security. Several scenario questions are direct applications of SRA patterns.

AWS Well-Architected Security Pillar whitepaper

Tracks closely to the exam's logging, detection, and IAM domains.

AWS Encryption Best Practices whitepaper

Read once. KMS, envelope encryption, and key policy questions become much easier.

CloudGoat (Rhino Security Labs)

Vulnerable-by-design AWS environments to practice attack and detection. Optional, but pays back if you want to genuinely understand IAM privilege escalation.

How to Set Up AWS Security Hub for Compliance Monitoring

AWS Security Hub aggregates security findings from 200+ sources (GuardDuty, Config, IAM Access Analyzer, Inspector). This guide covers setup, compliance standards (PCI-DSS, CIS, NIST), automated remediation, and building a compliance dashboard without hiring a SOC team.

AWS GuardDuty Threat Detection: A Production Setup Guide

How to deploy, tune, and operationalize Amazon GuardDuty for production threat detection — covering finding types, multi-account setup, automated response, and reducing false positives.

How to Achieve SOC 2 Type II Compliance on AWS (2026 Checklist)

SOC 2 Type II certification proves your controls are effective over 6-12 months. This guide covers the compliance roadmap, AWS security controls, documentation requirements, and audit preparation for 2026 certification.

How to Implement a HIPAA-Compliant Architecture on AWS — An Engineer's Build Guide

A solutions architect's build guide for HIPAA on AWS. KMS key strategy, VPC isolation, RDS/S3/Lambda configuration patterns, IaC controls, and continuous validation — code-level decisions, not policy templates.

ISO 27001 Certification on AWS: ISMS Implementation Guide for 2026

A practical guide to ISO 27001:2022 certification on AWS — building an ISMS that survives Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits, mapping the 93 Annex A controls to AWS services, and producing the evidence packages assessors actually request.

AWS Security Consulting

AWS security consulting from an AWS Select Tier Partner. 2-week assessment, 4–6 week remediation, zero disruption. IAM hardening, public exposure, compliance gaps, and continuous monitoring.

AWS Managed SOC & MDR Services

24/7 managed SOC and MDR for AWS — GuardDuty, Security Hub, Security Lake. Threat hunting, automated containment, incident response from an AWS Select Tier Partner.

AWS Penetration Testing Services

AWS-aware penetration testing — IAM privilege escalation, S3 misconfiguration, instance metadata exploitation, web app and API testing. OSCP-certified testers, OWASP/PTES methodology, AWS-compliant scope.

Cloud Compliance Services — HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI DSS on AWS

Cloud compliance services — HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, GDPR. Expert consulting from FactualMinds.