Shield Standard versus Shield Advanced

AWS Shield comes in two tiers. Shield Standard is free and on for everyone; Shield Advanced is a paid subscription that adds enhanced protection, visibility, support, and financial safeguards. Knowing exactly what each tier covers is a high-yield exam topic.

Shield Standard automatically protects all AWS customers against the most common Layer 3 and Layer 4 attacks at no charge. It requires no setup and is always active, especially effective for resources behind CloudFront and Route 53. It is the baseline every account already has.