The difference between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS

All of the services provided by AWS, Azure, and GCP are either SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS. The classification of each of these cloud services will directly affect what you’re allowed to do when you’re pentesting, as I’ve explained. So, understanding the differences between these types of services is crucial!

SaaS means the cloud provider gives your organization lots of components—the infrastructure everything runs on, its software platform and related APIs, and the application-level functions of its software. For instance, when we use Gmail, we’re using a fully SaaS application. AWS defines SaaS thus:

“SaaS is a business and software delivery model that enables organizations to offer their solution in a low-friction, service-centric approach.”

So, your organization is putting its data into the service, but it isn’t doing much—or any—software application development. Your...