Amazon Cognito Security Review
Cognito has two halves and people conflate them. User pools authenticate. Identity pools hand out AWS credentials. The serious findings are almost always in the second half, where an authenticated role reaches more of your account than intended. CREST-certified testers, fixed price from £2,860, scoped in 24 hours.
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Dan WilcocksonCo-Founder, CelloriA user pool is an authentication service and behaves like one. An identity pool is something else: it exchanges a token for temporary AWS credentials attached to an IAM role, and the security of your account then depends entirely on how tightly that role is scoped.
Why Cognito findings end in IAM
We regularly find authenticated roles with wide access to S3 or DynamoDB, and unauthenticated roles that grant more than they should to anyone who asks. Where guest access is enabled and the unauthenticated role is permissive, no credential is required at all.
On the user pool side it is self-signup and attributes. If signup is open and a Lambda trigger reads a custom attribute the user controls, group membership can follow from something the attacker typed into the registration form.
ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS and Cyber Essentials Plus audits accept manual penetration test evidence. Scan-only evidence is generally insufficient.
POOLS, TRIGGERS + IAM ROLES
What we actually pen test on a Cognito deployment
Manual pen testing across user pool configuration, self-signup and attribute handling, Lambda triggers, token validation and the IAM roles an identity pool grants.
User pool configuration
Self-signup settings, email and phone verification enforcement, password policy, account recovery flows, advanced security features, and whether app clients permit flows they should not such as USER_PASSWORD_AUTH.
Attributes and group assignment
Which attributes are writable by the user, whether any of them influence group membership or authorisation, and whether a standard user can alter an attribute the application trusts.
Lambda triggers
Pre-signup, pre-token generation, post-confirmation and custom authentication triggers read and tested for logic that grants groups or claims from unvalidated input, and for failure paths that permit a login.
Identity pool and IAM roles
Authenticated and unauthenticated role policies enumerated and tested for what they actually reach in the account, role trust policy conditions, and whether guest access is enabled and permissive.
Token validation and session
ID and access token contents, audience and issuer validation at the API and at API Gateway authorisers, token lifetimes, refresh token revocation, and behaviour after a user is disabled or deleted.
API and resource access
API Gateway authorisers, AppSync authorisation rules where used, and whether a token issued for one tenant or user can read another’s data through the backend.
METHODOLOGY
Amazon Cognito Security Review: From Scope to Attestation
CREST-aligned methodology built on OWASP Web Security Testing Guide, OWASP ASVS, NIST SP 800-115, and PTES. Each finding maps to all four standards plus your specific compliance regime.
Reconnaissance
Application mapping, technology fingerprinting, content discovery, parameter enumeration, authentication-flow analysis, role-matrix construction.
Vulnerability Assessment
Authenticated and unauthenticated automated scanning across every user role, plus targeted manual checks for known weakness patterns.
Manual Exploitation
Hands-on testing by a CREST-certified pentester. Business-logic exploitation, chained vulnerabilities, privilege escalation, impact validation.
Reporting + Retest
Executive summary, technical report with CVSS scores and reproduction steps, walkthrough call, free retest after remediation, attestation letter.
CREDENTIALS
Verified Accreditations Auditors Accept
Every credential below is independently verifiable. UK procurement teams, FCA supervisors, ISO 27001 / SOC 2 auditors, and cyber insurance underwriters all recognise these standards.
GET YOUR QUOTE
Get a CREST Cognito pen test quote in 24 hours
A fixed-price quote back in one business day, from a named CREST assessor. No sales pipeline, no chasing.
- CREST and IASME accredited. Testing your auditors and clients already recognise.
- Fast-track testing within 24 hours where required. Free retest of every fix included.
- Live findings via your client portal, not a four-week PDF.
- Fixed price from £3,500 for a single-role, single-app scope, agreed up front. Most engagements run £5,000 and up. No day-rate surprises.
Dan WilcocksonCo-Founder, CelloriUnder NDA Further named references available on a scoping call.
- We reply within one business day with a fixed-price quote from a named CREST assessor.
- You approve the scope and we book a start date, usually within 24 hours.
- Live findings land in your client portal as we test, with a free retest of every fix.
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COMPLIANCE READY
Reports Mapped to Every Framework
Findings are explicitly tagged to the relevant control reference. Your audit team submits the report directly without translation work.
ISO 27001:2022
Annex A.8.8 management of technical vulnerabilities plus A.5.15-5.18 and A.8.2-8.5 access control validation.
SOC 2 Type I & II
CC6 logical access, CC7 system operations, CC8 change management evidence.
PCI DSS
Requirement 11.4 application penetration testing across cardholder data environments, including ecommerce penetration testing for online retail platforms.
FCA SYSC
SYSC 4.1.1R, 6.1.1R, 13 mapped to each finding for FCA-regulated firms.
UK GDPR
Article 32 effectiveness testing, customer-data security controls, ICO-acceptable evidence.
Cyber Essentials Plus
Direct certification through our IASME body status, single-vendor delivery.
PRICING
Transparent Amazon Cognito Security Review Pricing
Pricing depends on app complexity, user-role count, business-logic depth, and integration surface. The day count flexes; the included deliverables stay the same across all engagements.
2 to 3 testing days
Single user role, basic CRUD application, marketing website with auth. Around 5 working days from kickoff to report.
Get a fixed quote3 to 5 testing days
Multi-role SaaS, business application with payment integration. Around 8 to 12 working days from kickoff to report.
Get a fixed quote5 to 7 testing days
Multi-tenant platform, complex authorisation matrix, integration-heavy applications. Around 15 to 20 working days from kickoff to report.
Get a fixed quotePart of Technologies We Pen Test. These are examples of the stacks we publish pages for, not a complete list. If yours is not here we still test it. Related pages:
BY SECTOR
Amazon Cognito Security Review for Your Sector
Sector-specialist scoping for UK businesses with sector-specific compliance regimes and threat models.
Fintech & FCA-Regulated
FCA SYSC, Open Banking FAPI 1.0, PSD2 SCA, payment-flow scrutiny, KYC/AML testing.
Fintech sector pageSaaS Companies
SOC 2 Type I & II evidence, multi-tenant boundaries, role escalation, customer-tenant isolation.
SaaS sector pageLaw Firms
SRA Cyber Standard, privileged data, conveyancing fraud defence, partner-tier procurement.
Law firm sector pageHealthcare
NHS DTAC, DSP Toolkit v6, UK GDPR Article 32, EHR systems, telehealth platforms.
Healthcare sector pageInsurance
FCA / PRA Operational Resilience, cyber underwriting, claims data, broker portals.
Insurance sector pagePublic Sector
CCS / G-Cloud framework, NCSC-aligned, citizen-facing services, PSN-compliance scrutiny.
Public sector pageWHY EJN LABS
What You Get From Amazon Cognito Security Review
Six concrete differentiators competitors don’t all match.
CREST-Certified Testers, Verifiable
Every test by a CREST-certified pen tester (CRT, CCT APP, CCT INF where applicable). Verify our company status at crest-approved.org.
24-Hour Startup, Where Required
From signed scope to active testing in a single business day for incident response, audit deadlines, or regulator-driven timelines.
Live Findings, Not 4-Week PDFs
Critical issues reported during testing through your client portal. Your team remediates while testing continues.
Audit-Ready Reports
Executive summary plus full technical report with CVSS scores and explicit framework mappings (ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, FCA SYSC).
Free Retests, Standard
Verify remediation of every finding before close-out. Letter of attestation for audit submission included. Most competitors charge £1,500-£3,000 per retest.
UK-Based CREST Testers
Every engagement performed by vetted, UK-based CREST-certified testers, matched to your needs, security clearance, and compliance scope.
FAQ
Frequently Asked
Do you need AWS access?
Read-only access to the Cognito configuration and the associated IAM roles makes this far more valuable, because the highest-severity findings are in role policy. We can test black box from the application, but it sees a fraction of it.
Is the rest of our AWS account in scope?
Only what the Cognito roles reach, which is the point of the test. If you want the wider account reviewed, that is our AWS cloud security review and the two work well together.
We only use user pools, not identity pools. Is this still worth it?
Yes, and it runs shorter. Without identity pools the IAM escalation path disappears, so the focus moves to signup abuse, attributes, triggers and token validation at your API.
What about SDK and mobile clients?
In scope. Mobile applications frequently embed the user pool and client IDs, which is expected, but they sometimes embed rather more than that. We check what the client actually ships.
How does this map to compliance?
Findings are mapped to ISO 27001 and SOC 2, and to the AWS Foundational Security Best Practices where relevant, written so an auditor can use them.
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Get a fixed price for your Cognito setup
Tell us whether identity pools are in play and how many app clients you run. Fixed-price quote from a named CREST assessor within one business day, unlimited retesting and no cancellation fees.
