I think your being overly paranoid. The effort required to covertly break into an AWS instance and not have anyone in the sysadmin teams know is simply not worth it for 99.9% of businesses.
I run a simply mid-level business. Amazon doesn't give a crap about my data - that, above all, is what keeps it safe. I'm just not important enough to bother.
Well, you should understand this a little better, then.
Okay try this scenario: lets say I work for a German company that is kicking ass in a market that a spook-at-Amazon has heavily invested in - lets just say "personal transportation system X".
Because its Germany, the tech is amazing and consequently I'm going to sell this tech to Africa, because I like doing that, and not in America - because fuck America, that's why. Also, maybe China, maybe Kazakhstan. My tech, my choice.
Should I succeed in this endeavour, I'm immediately under threat of being NSA'ed by the provider of service I'd rely on, ordinarily, to render my research.
This isn't paranoia, it is due diligence.
Yeah, no thanks, Amazon. This heralds a watershed moment: a return to local services.
Just better to avoid the American spook-o'-sphere entirely, and play a local hand. Maybe even take the data centre guys out for grünkohl and senf some time, whatever.
Look - to understand why the hate for all the spook/control paranoia, Americans/Brits/5-eyes/et al., all you have to do is try to see it from the other side of the national identity for a second.
Germans are very, very rightly on the side of data protection.
The holes in the ground that used to be Gestapo buildings are not all parking lots! Some of them are memorials.
Also not paranoia: diligence.
(^WThis comment brought to you by the ACME-HNnnn-comment-slowdown-negotiator-system™ .. time wasted, is creativity! Disclaimer: Not German, am applying hypotheticals. Still not paranoia!)
I run a simply mid-level business. Amazon doesn't give a crap about my data - that, above all, is what keeps it safe. I'm just not important enough to bother.