You are legally and financially responsible for everything that happens under your AWS account, even if someone else accessed it without your permission. AWS does not accept responsibility for unauthorized access to your account.
This analysis describes what AWS's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
If your account credentials are stolen and an attacker runs up large AWS charges, you are contractually obligated to pay those charges and AWS bears no liability for the unauthorized access.
This clause means that unauthorized use of your AWS account, including by hackers or compromised credentials, is treated as your financial responsibility under the agreement. Customers should implement strong authentication and access controls because the financial risk of account compromise falls entirely on the account holder.
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Lime reserves the right to (a) modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Services (or any part thereof); (b) refuse any user access to the Services for any reason, including if Lime believes that user has violated this Agreement; at any time and without notice or liability to you or to ...
Twilio may, without notice, suspend or terminate Customer's account and access to the Services if Customer violates this Agreement, including the Acceptable Use Policy, or if Twilio reasonably believes that Customer's use of the Services is causing harm to Twilio, its network, or third parties.
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"You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account, regardless of whether the activities are authorized by you or undertaken by you, your employees or a third party (including your contractors, agents or End Users), and we are not responsible for unauthorized access to your account.— Excerpt from AWS's AWS Customer Agreement
REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: This clause interacts with consumer protection frameworks under the FTC Act and potentially state-level consumer protection statutes. For individual consumers, some jurisdictions may limit the enforceability of blanket liability assignment for unauthorized third-party activity. GDPR's accountability principle requires organizations to implement appropriate security measures; this clause does not diminish the customer's own GDPR obligations as a controller. GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: High. The clause creates uncapped financial exposure for account holders in the event of credential compromise, phishing, or insider threats. AWS's refusal to accept responsibility for unauthorized access means customers must rely entirely on their own security controls and cyber insurance. JURISDICTION FLAGS: In some EU member states and under UK consumer contract regulations, clauses that assign unlimited liability for third-party unauthorized conduct may face challenge, particularly for consumer or small business customers. California's CCPA and consumer protection statutes may also be relevant if personal data is accessed without authorization. CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: Enterprise procurement agreements should consider negotiating shared responsibility frameworks for specific unauthorized access scenarios, particularly for high-value accounts. Security operations teams should ensure that AWS account activity monitoring, CloudTrail logging, and GuardDuty are enabled as baseline controls given the liability this clause places on the customer. COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Information security and compliance teams should document that multi-factor authentication is enforced on all privileged AWS accounts and that access key rotation policies are in place. Incident response plans should account for the contractual obligation to pay charges incurred during an unauthorized access event, and insurance coverage should be confirmed to address this scenario.
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If your account credentials are stolen and an attacker runs up large AWS charges, you are contractually obligated to pay those charges and AWS bears no liability for the unauthorized access.
This clause means that unauthorized use of your AWS account, including by hackers or compromised credentials, is treated as your financial responsibility under the agreement. Customers should implement strong authentication and access controls because the financial risk of account compromise falls entirely on the account holder.
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