For cloud security consultancies
who run AWS, Azure, and GCP assessments at scale

A platform built for cloud security consulting where the assessment, the application, and the code all live in one record

Cloud security consultancies run a different shape of work to generalist security firms. The engagement spans a cloud account, the workloads inside it, the applications that run on the workloads, and the code that produced the applications. The customer expects one report that speaks to all four layers, with consistent severity, consistent remediation guidance, and a live view of what is open. Doing that in spreadsheets, screenshot folders, and exported CSPM reports is the work. The actual security judgement gets crowded out by coordination overhead.

SecPortal gives cloud security consultancies one workspace per cloud customer, structured engagements per cloud or per provider, findings management with CVSS 3.1 across configuration and runtime, authenticated DAST and code scanning on the application surface, compliance tracking that maps to ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and NIST, AI-assisted reporting tuned for layered audiences, and a branded client portal so the cloud customer reads the live picture rather than a stale PDF.

Capabilities for cloud security consulting in one workspace

How cloud security consultancies run a portfolio inside SecPortal

A cloud consulting practice is most efficient when every customer looks the same operationally: same engagement structure, same evidence model, same reporting pattern, regardless of which cloud is in scope. SecPortal supports the full portfolio rather than one assessment at a time.

From scope walkdown to remediation closure on one engagement record

Cloud engagements share an underlying shape across providers and customer types (SaaS, fintech, healthcare, regulated industries). The platform runs that shape so the consultant focuses on judgement work rather than coordination overhead.

1. 1Open the client record with primary contacts, the cloud estate inventory at the level the engagement requires (accounts, subscriptions, projects, regions, organisations), and any prior assessment history.
2. 2Create the engagement with the methodology spelled out (cloud configuration review, cloud-native penetration test, IAM review, multi-cloud risk assessment, provider-specific framework alignment) and attach the signed authorisation as evidence.
3. 3Walk the scope with the customer, mark which accounts and workloads are in or out, capture rules of engagement (no production data exfiltration, no rate-limit triggering of provider APIs, no destructive testing of shared services), and confirm the testing window.
4. 4Log findings as they surface from the cloud configuration review, the IAM analysis, manual exploitation, authenticated DAST against the application surface, and SAST and SCA against the application code. Each finding carries a CVSS vector, severity, evidence, and remediation guidance.
5. 5Track remediation through the branded portal. Findings have owners, severity-driven target dates, and status updates that the customer's engineering team and the consultancy share live between formal cycles.
6. 6Generate the deliverable from the live record. The executive summary, technical writeup, and remediation roadmap come off the same finding set. The cloud customer receives a controlled document; the consultant edits a draft rather than writes from blank.

Why cloud security engagements need a different operating pattern

Cloud assessments are not just an IT pentest with cloud branding on the cover. The provider environment, the shared responsibility split, and the speed of change in the customer estate change how the engagement runs from end to end.

• The estate moves between scoping and reporting. An AWS account that had thirty resources at scope kickoff often has two hundred by the time the report ships. The engagement record has to absorb new findings as they surface and retire stale ones cleanly, rather than freezing scope on day one and producing a report that is already wrong on delivery.
• Shared responsibility splits the finding ownership. A misconfigured S3 bucket policy is a customer fix; an exploitable provider default is an escalation, not a remediation ticket. The findings model has to capture that distinction so the customer is not chasing a fix that is not theirs to make, and so the consultant can carry forward provider-side observations on the engagement record cleanly.
• Cloud findings combine with application findings. A weak IAM policy on its own is a low or medium; the same weak policy combined with a server-side request forgery in the application that runs on top of it is a critical chain. Storing IAM findings, application findings, and code findings on the same workspace is what makes the chain visible. Storing them in three different tools hides it.
• Compliance is provider-aware. ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and NIST CSF map to the cloud estate through provider-specific control overlays (AWS Config conformance packs, Azure Policy initiatives, GCP Security Command Center findings). The compliance tracker has to map findings to the framework controls consistently across providers so the auditor reads one trail, not three.
• Reassessment is constant. Cloud customers buy monthly, quarterly, or continuous engagements far more often than annual ones. The consultancy has to deliver a fresh picture every cycle without rebuilding the engagement record from scratch each time.

Frameworks the platform supports for cloud security work

Cloud assessments anchor to public frameworks that the customer auditors and risk teams recognise. The platform ships structured framework reference pages that consultancies link their deliverables to, alongside compliance tracking against the controls those frameworks define.

• ISO 27001 for the management-system framing that most enterprise cloud customers anchor their security programme to, with cloud findings linked to Annex A controls.
• SOC 2 for service organisations on the cloud whose customers expect a Type II report and a consultant-led readiness or surveillance engagement.
• PCI DSS for cloud-hosted payment workloads, where the cardholder data environment crosses provider boundaries and requires segmentation evidence on the engagement record.
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework and NIST SP 800-53 for cloud customers in federal, federally adjacent, or NIST-aligned commercial environments where the catalogue applies alongside provider-specific overlays.
• OWASP for the application surface inside the cloud estate, including the OWASP Top 10 web application risks and the API Security Top 10 that cloud-hosted APIs expose.
• CIS Controls for the implementation baseline that cloud customers use to operationalise framework requirements into specific cloud configuration standards.

Where cloud assessment meets technical testing inside the platform

Most cloud security engagements include technical testing alongside the configuration review. The platform runs the technical workstreams on the same workspace as the configuration findings, so the deliverable comes off one record.

• The cloud security assessment use case covers the operational shape of the engagement, including subdomain enumeration, cloud storage exposure detection, infrastructure fingerprinting, and authenticated testing of cloud-hosted applications.
• The penetration testing use case covers the day-to-day flow of running a cloud-native pentest from scope through findings and delivery, which is the pattern the technical workstream of a cloud engagement runs on.
• The code review use case covers the SAST and SCA workstream against the application code that backs the cloud workload, with results landing on the same engagement as the configuration findings.
• The scanner result triage use case covers the discipline of validating, deduplicating, and severity-calibrating raw scanner output before it reaches the customer engineering team as noise.
• The cloud storage misconfiguration, server-side request forgery, and hardcoded secrets reference pages cover three of the most common findings in cloud assessments and the remediation patterns that customers expect to see in the report.
• The cloud penetration testing checklist and the cloud security assessment guide give long-form references that cloud consultancies adapt into their own engagement methodology and link from their proposals.

Where to start

Most cloud security consultancies adopt the platform in three steps: stand up a single cloud customer with a structured assessment engagement on the provider in scope, move recurring review customers onto the same model so monthly and quarterly cycles roll forward year over year, then bring the application testing and code scanning workstreams into the same workspace so the consolidated report comes off one record.

If your practice runs a broader security consulting line alongside the cloud specialism, the sister page SecPortal for security consultants covers engagement management across pentest, IR, and assessment work in the same workspace. If your practice ships compliance readiness alongside the cloud engagement, the compliance consultants page covers the multi-framework portfolio pattern. If the cloud workload backs an internal application security programme rather than an external customer, the application security teams page covers the in-house pattern, and the cloud security teams page covers the in-house cloud security programme that runs the configuration, application, and code surfaces on one engagement record rather than across three customers.

For the operational shape of running cloud assessments inside the platform, the cloud security assessment use case walks through scope, finding capture, evidence handling, and report generation in detail, and the DevSecOps scanning use case covers the continuous code-and-application scanning side that a recurring cloud engagement layers on top of the configuration review.