Back to Lessons

AWS Shared Responsibility Model

April 5, 2026

Shared Responsibility Model

AWS secures infrastructure; customers secure applications/data.

Complete Responsibility Matrix

AWS Responsibilities:
- Physical security of data centers
- Hardware maintenance/replacement
- Host OS virtualization layer
- Global network infrastructure
- Hardware firewalls/redundant power

Customer Responsibilities:
- OS configuration & patching
- Network configuration (VPC/SGs)
- IAM policies & user management
- Application-level security
- Data encryption (at rest/in transit)
- OS/application patching

Service Model Differences

  • IaaS (EC2): Customer manages most layers
  • PaaS (RDS): AWS manages OS/DB software
  • SaaS (WorkMail): AWS manages everything