AWS security breaches are often caused by misconfigurations, which can leave gaps in security that attackers can exploit. The shared responsibility model between cloud providers and customers means that customers must deploy their applications securely, including all environments beyond just production. High-profile breaches have affected companies like Capital One, Pegasus Airlines, Twilio, Uber, and Imperva, with various reasons for the breaches, including misconfigured firewalls, unprotected S3 buckets, weak authentication, and exposed API keys. To prevent such breaches, it's essential to know your environment, empower developers to catch and fix mistakes, and focus on secure design and prevention. Companies can use tools like Snyk's AWS vulnerability scanning to identify vulnerabilities before attackers can. By taking these steps, companies can reduce the risk of AWS security breaches and protect their customers' sensitive data.