Lion Cipher Lab
Set up a cloud account the secure way (AWS Free Tier)
- Cloud Security
- Beginner
- ~45 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
A cloud account is the most powerful thing most people will ever create with a form and a card number: from it you can spin up servers anywhere in the world in seconds, and a leaked login or a forgotten running machine can turn into a real bill or a real breach just as fast. The habits in this lab are exactly the first moves a professional makes on any new account, in order — turn on multi-factor authentication for the all-powerful root login, stop using that root login for daily work, create a limited user to actually work as, and put a hard ceiling on spending so a mistake cannot quietly…
What you'll learn
- AWS account setup
- the shared responsibility model
- root user MFA
- least-privilege IAM users
- billing alarms and budgets
- free-tier cost awareness
Steps in this lab
- The one idea that makes all of this make sense: shared responsibility
- Create the account, then meet the root user
- Turn on MFA for the root user — do this first, before anything else
- Stop using root — create a limited admin user to actually work as
- Put a hard ceiling on cost: a billing alarm and a budget
- Free-tier awareness: don't leave things running
- What you just did — and why it's the exact professional baseline