Enterprise-Grade Security Without Building Your Own SOC

As an AWS Advanced Services Tier Partner with a two-decade history of managing complex enterprise applications, Sierra-Cedar has developed a structured approach designed to help reduce the cost, complexity, and uncertainty of your move from VMware to the cloud.

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Why AWS Security Requires Specialized Experience

Post-Migration Security Risks

Moving from VMware to AWS introduces new attack surfaces and security paradigms. The AWS shared responsibility model shifts security obligations to your team. Misconfigurations can expose critical workloads within hours.

Venafi (2024) reports 81% of organizations experienced a cloud-related security incident in the past year

The AWS Security Skill Gap

VMware security experience doesn’t translate to AWS-native security. AWS security services (GuardDuty, Security Hub, Config) require specialized knowledge. ZipRecruiter (2024) reports AWS security engineers cost $150K-$180K+ per FTE.

Dark Reading (2023) reports 6-9 month hiring timelines for specialized security roles

Continuous Threat Landscape

Threats evolve daily; point-in-time assessments age quickly. 24×7 monitoring is needed to detect and respond to threats. Proactive threat hunting helps avoid breaches before they happen.

IBM Security (2024) reports average breach detection time of 207 days for organizations without SOC monitoring

Managed Security Operations

Four extensive security capabilities providing defense-in-depth protection for your AWS environment

SOC Monitoring

  • ✓ Centralized security event correlation across infrastructure layers
  • ✓ Continuous monitoring of AWS Security Hub, GuardDuty, Config
  • ✓ Proactive threat hunting with experienced security analysts
  • ✓ 24×7 alerting for high and critical severity events, with Sierra-Cedar analyst response and investigation during business hours for other security events

Advanced Threat Protection

  • ✓ Extended detection and response across endpoints, network, and cloud workloads
  • ✓ Real-time malware protection for EC2 instances
  • ✓ Container security for ECS/EKS workloads with runtime protection
  • ✓ Attack surface visibility and cyber risk exposure scoring
  • ✓ Global threat intelligence correlated with environment-specific signals
  • ✓ AI-powered threat correlation and machine learning-based alerting designed to reduce false positives and accelerate analyst response.

Vulnerability Management

  • ✓ Continuous vulnerability scanning with risk-based prioritization
  • ✓ Remediation tracking correlated with threat intelligence and exploitability
  • ✓ Patch coordination is integrated with OS maintenance windows
  • ✓ Annual penetration testing and security assessments
  • ✓ Exception management workflow for accepted risks

Compliance & Governance

  • ✓ SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II compliance frameworks maintained
  • ✓ Incident response documentation integrated with compliance requirements
  • ✓ Validation of security posture against various industry-standard security frameworks

Security Built Into Your Infrastructure, Not Bolted On

Foundation Secure

Infrastructure security (encryption, security groups, IAM)

FlexOps® policy enforcement (Sierra-Cedar’s infrastructure-as-code automation framework)

AWS-native security service configuration

Network segmentation and VPC architecture

SOC team analyzing security events

Advanced tooling: centralized threat visibility, risk-prioritized vulnerability data, and unified audit trails

Proactive threat hunting and incident response

Vulnerability management and remediation

DELIVERS

Multi-layered security across network, application, and data tiers

Z

Continuous compliance validation

Automated response to common threats

Coordinated response: analysts see the full security picture, not a siloed view from each tool

Foundation Secure: Security Deployed with Infrastructure

Security configurations deployed with infrastructure, not bolted on after

What This Means for You:

✔

Avoidance over remediation: Security controls deployed before workloads go live

✔

Minutes, not weeks: Robust security stack deployed at build time

✔

Helps avoid configuration drift: Designed to maintain identical security across AWS regions

✔

Visibility from go-live: Security monitoring designed to begin when workloads are deployed, not weeks later

Technical Details: How Security Data Flows to Sierra-Cedar’s SOC
AWS Cloud Environment
AWS Services
  • CloudTrail
  • GuardDuty
  • AWS Config
  • Inspector
Third-Party Tools
  • Vulnerability scans
  • XDR events
  • WAF logs
  • Endpoint alerts
Custom Monitors
  • IAM changes
  • MFA compliance
  • Public scans
  • Session logs
10+ Kinesis Firehose Streams
(Automated data transformation & delivery)
SIEM Platform
(SOC Console)
Security Team Alert & Response

10+ Security Data Sources Automatically Delivered to SOC:

CloudTrail – API activity audit across AWS accounts
GuardDuty findings – Threat detections and malicious activity alerts
Firewall event logs – Network security and threat detection
XDR events – Malware detection, policy violations, intrusions
Vulnerability scan results – Prioritized remediation guidance
Session Manager logs – Record of privileged access
IAM change detection – Unauthorized permission modifications
MFA compliance – Authentication policy enforcement monitoring
Public scan results – External exposure detection
DNS query logs – Malicious domain communication detection
OS security logs – Operating system security events (auto from image)

Key Benefits:

  • Designed to reduce manual log shipping configuration
  • Sub-minute log delivery designed to support near-real-time SOC visibility
  • Automatic retry logic and error handling
  • Data transformation for effective SIEM ingestion
  • Built-in dead-letter queues designed to support reliable delivery
AWS Cloud Environment
AWS Services
  • CloudTrail
  • GuardDuty
  • AWS Config
  • Inspector
Third-Party Tools
  • Vulnerability scans
  • XDR events
  • WAF logs
  • Endpoint alerts
Custom Monitors
  • IAM changes
  • MFA compliance
  • Public scans
  • Session logs
10+ Kinesis Firehose Streams
(Automated data transformation & delivery)
SIEM Platform
(SOC Console)
Security Team Alert & Response

10+ Security Data Sources Automatically Delivered to SOC:

CloudTrail - API activity audit across AWS accounts
GuardDuty findings - Threat detections and malicious activity alerts
Firewall event logs - Network security and threat detection
XDR events - Malware detection, policy violations, intrusions
Vulnerability scan results - Prioritized remediation guidance
Session Manager logs - Record of privileged access
IAM change detection - Unauthorized permission modifications
MFA compliance - Authentication policy enforcement monitoring
Public scan results - External exposure detection
DNS query logs - Malicious domain communication detection
OS security logs - Operating system security events (auto from image)

Key Benefits:

  • Designed to reduce manual log shipping configuration
  • Sub-minute log delivery designed to support near-real-time SOC visibility
  • Automatic retry logic and error handling
  • Data transformation for effective SIEM ingestion
  • Built-in dead-letter queues designed to support reliable delivery

Orchestrated Security Operations, Not Just Tools

Enterprise-grade security capabilities integrated and managed by experienced SOC analysts

Security Event Correlation
SIEM Platform with SOC Analysis
Our security analysts use centralized event correlation to identify patterns across security layers, including endpoint activity, network traffic, threat intelligence, and vulnerability data, designed to find threats that individual tools miss.
Extended Detection & Response
Cross-Layer Threat Detection
Behavioral analysis correlates endpoint, network, and cloud signals with global threat intelligence. Automated containment for known threats; SOC investigation for behavioral anomalies.
Global Threat Intelligence
Early Warning System
Threat feeds provide early warning of emerging campaigns, adversary tactics, and exploited vulnerabilities, which are correlated with the environment to identify relevant threats.
AWS-Native Security Services
Cloud-Native Detection
AWS Security Hub, GuardDuty, and Config integrated with our SOC platform, providing cloud-native detections enriched with broader threat context and investigated by experienced analysts.
Multi-Layer Endpoint Protection
Real-time Workload Security
Machine learning-based threat detection for EC2 instances, container runtime protection for ECS/EKS, and vulnerability scanning for deployed workloads, all feeding threat data to central correlation.
Network Threat Protection
Next-Generation Firewall
IPS/IDS protection with application-layer filtering and zero-day threat avoidance capabilities. Network traffic data feeds into central correlation for extensive threat visibility.
Privileged Access Management
Credential Security and Audit
Secure credential storage and rotation, and audit trails integrated with compliance frameworks, reducing insider threat risk.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Intelligent Remediation Prioritization
Vulnerability assessment correlated with threat intelligence and exploitability data. Our analysts prioritize remediation based on actual risk to the environment, not just severity scores.
Attack Surface Management
Continuous Exposure Assessment
Visibility into your attack surface with risk scoring that considers configuration weaknesses, unpatched vulnerabilities, and active threat campaigns, then prioritizing what matters most.
The Difference: Orchestration
The tools detect signals. Our SOC analysts orchestrate the response. When vulnerability scanning identifies a critical CVE, threat intelligence confirms active exploitation, and behavioral analysis detects reconnaissance activity — our team connects those signals into a coordinated response that individual tools can't achieve alone.

Not Just Tools—Experience and Integration

What sets Sierra-Cedar Security Operations Services apart from generic managed security providers

FlexOps-Integrated Security
Security policies enforced as infrastructure-as-code. Helps avoid misconfigurations before deployment. Automated compliance validation with every change.
vs. Bolted-on security tools with manual configuration
AWS-Native Specialization
Deep experience in AWS-native security services. Optimized for AWS workloads and architecture.
vs. Generic multi-cloud security with limited AWS knowledge
Defense-in-Depth with Experienced SOC
Experienced security personnel, not just automated alerts. Proactive threat hunting, not reactive monitoring. 24x7 coverage by industry-leading SOC partner with escalation to incident response team.
vs. Alert fatigue and understaffed security teams
Continuity from Migration to Operations
Sierra-Cedar aims to deliver an integrated approach, where dedicated security specialists work alongside migration specialists to provide security services that are baked into the migration process, rather than being added as an afterthought.
vs. Disjointed vendors for migration and security

Measurable Security Outcomes

Quantifiable benefits from adopting Security Operations Services

Risk Reduction
  • ✓Industry research shows up to 73% reduction in security vulnerabilities within first 90 days through scanning and remediation
  • ✓Security automation can reduce threat detection time by up to 85% compared to manual processes with 24x7 SOC monitoring
  • ✓Prioritized remediation of critical vulnerabilities, including zero-day threats, with patching coordinated within established response SLAs
  • ✓Reduced attack surface through defense-in-depth strategy and proactive threat hunting
Compliance Simplification
  • ✓Sierra-Cedar maintains SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II certification for managed services operations. Clients may use our compliance reports for their own audit requirements
  • ✓Clients can streamline their audit process by referencing Sierra-Cedar's SOC reports for AWS-hosted environments, reducing the scope of their own compliance documentation
  • ✓Policy enforcement via FlexOps means that infrastructure changes are designed to align with requirements, complementing periodic SOC audits
  • ✓Audit evidence and incident response documentation available upon request via support ticket
Operational Efficiency
  • ✓Reduce need to hire AWS security engineers ($150K+ per FTE, 6+ months to hire)
  • ✓24x7 SOC coverage reduces on-call burden for internal teams
  • ✓Single vendor for infrastructure and security operations simplifies management
Cost Optimization
  • ✓Full security stack included (no separate vendor management or tool procurement)
  • ✓Avoid SOC build-out costs ($500K–$1M+ for in-house SOC infrastructure)
  • ✓Predictable monthly OpEx vs. unpredictable security incidents and staffing costs

Common Questions About Security Operations

Can we use our existing security tools?

Security Operations Services uses industry-leading products and services as part of the integrated offering. These are generally uniform across clients but we can discuss any particular needs.

What if we already have internal security staff?

Security Operations Services complements your existing team by handling 24×7 monitoring, routine security operations, and AWS-specific security tasks. Your team can focus on strategic security initiatives rather than day-to-day operations.

 

What compliance frameworks are supported?

Sierra-Cedar maintains SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II certification for its managed services operations. Clients may be able to reference these compliance reports for their own audit requirements. Audit evidence items are available upon request via a Level 1 support ticket.

 

What's the process for security incidents?

Our SOC team investigates, contains threats, and coordinates remediation. You’ll receive detailed incident reports and post-incident analysis.

 

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