Reflections on AWS re:Invent 2025: Challenges, Highlights, and Personal Achievements
It’s been a few weeks since the completion of Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent. I wanted to share some thoughts. Unfortunately, Amazon Web Services (AWS) re: Invent 2025 didn’t go as planned. Before the event, I had planned all my sessions, the keynote, the vendor parties, and the sightseeing that I wanted to accomplish.
To make things easier, I rented a car to move flexibly between sessions at Venetian, MGM, and Mandalay. However, I couldn't do everything because I caught the flu 🤒 and had to spend half of the first two days in the hotel. Despite this, I managed to finish the re:Invent 5K run with Chibuike Nwachukwu and set a personal record of 30:20, which is below my usual PRs on Strava .
Now, enough about me. We all know Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent is the largest tech conference in the world, drawing over 60,000 attendees from all around the globe. It's my favorite tech conference ever.
Even though I spent half of the first two days recovering from the flu, it was amazing reconnecting with familiar faces who have become like family, as well as meeting new professionals.
Here are some of my top security highlights from the event that I thought you might find interesting:
Security Hub:
The new Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security Hub features were announced in June 2025 during the AWS re:Inforce conference, which is a standalone security conference hosted by AWS. They introduced a refined UI, provided near real-time risk analytics and trends, unified enablement, and automated correlation that transforms security signals into actionable insights. Additionally, they added a combination of findings in Security Hub with third-party integrations like Jira, ServiceNow, and many more. Although it was in preview since June, it is now generally available with near real-time analytics and risk prioritization. I was genuinely happy with how Security Hub has improved. FAQs
AWS login
The new aws login command lets you obtain credentials for a CLI (or other applications) by using your browser session. Previously, this feature was available for AWS Identity Center users through "aws sso login" or various open-source tools, but it wasn't available for all types of account access scenarios.
Make sure you upgrade AWS CLI to AWS CLI v2 before you can enjoy the feature. Here is a link to more information on aws login
AWS Organizations: Direct Account Transfer between organizations:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Organizations now allows direct account transfers between organizations, eliminating the need for accounts to operate as standalone accounts during the transfer process. This streamlines account transfers and ensures continued access to governance features and consolidated billing benefits. Get more information here.
Amazon GuardDuty now includes Extended Threat Detection for EC2 and ECS.
Amazon GuardDuty Extended Threat Detection now includes new attack sequence findings for Amazon EC2 instances and ECS tasks, enhancing visibility and detection of multistage attacks across virtual machine and container environments using AI and ML. For more information on how it works, check here.
Amazon S3 Block Public Access now supports organization-level enforcement.
All cloud security experts know the criticality of Data Perimeters and how insecure, overpermissive S3 buckets can lead to security incidents and many other issues. Amazon S3 Block Public Access (BPA) now offers organization-level control through AWS Organizations, allowing centralized enforcement of S3 public access settings across all accounts. This feature is available in the AWS Organizations console and AWS CLI/SDK, with no additional charges.
As an AB alumni advisor, it was such a pleasure to see my mentees and help them navigate the conference Banshaj Paudel , Omshree Butani , Taihei Mizuno , 최영훈 , Kashish Datta, CSPO® , Hsien-Cheng Huang thank you for being such an awesome group.
It was wonderful spending quality time with these kind-hearted individuals: Damien Burks Kosisochukwu Akaeze , Mariana Arce Aguilar , Aminat Usman , Chukwudi Uzoma , Oloruntobi Awoderu , Victory Eze , Rhea Katherine Minta-Jacobs , Jemil Oyebisi , Viktoria Semaan , Olushola Oladipupo , Melody Egwuchukwu , Charity Kemei , Sharanya Sisodia , Yinka Aluko , Pranjal Nawarkar , Natasha Moses , Elyas Syed , Manasse Ngendahimana , Endah Bongo-Awah , Elijah Ibidayo , Davin Latiker, MBA
A big thank you to 🖖 Andoni Alonso Fernández for the Prowler t-shirt and the unicorn sticker. Also, thank you to Norma Stevens and Marisol Jenkins for all your wonderful work for the AB Community. I’m feeling much better now.
