Cloud services offer incredible flexibility, but as adoption matures, the attack vectors evolve. While foundational issues remain, the modern threat landscape is dominated by interconnected services and identity failures. When businesses migrate to the cloud, they often underestimate this new shift in security responsibility, moving from network-centric to identity- and API-centric security.

Here is a breakdown of the critical misconfigurations our team repeatedly discovers during penetration tests and architecture / configuration reviews.

1. Identity & Access Mismanagement

This is the number one threat vector. It goes beyond simple "overly permissive roles" and includes a cluster of failures. We frequently find:

• Overly Permissive IAM: Roles with god-like permissions (e.g. *:*) on users or services in AWS, Azure, and GCP.
• Hard-coded Secrets: AWS keys, Azure service principal secrets, or GCP service account keys left in source code, configuration files, or CI/CD pipelines.
• Missing MFA: Privileged and root-level accounts lacking Multi-Factor Authentication, making them a prime target for credential stuffing.
• Poor Secrets Management: Failure to use native tools like AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, or GCP Secret Manager for proper rotation and access control.

2. Insecure APIs & Interfaces

This is the new, undefended "front door." Modern cloud-native apps are built from microservices and serverless functions (e.g. AWS Lambda, Azure Functions) that communicate via APIs. We consistently find:

• Unauthenticated Endpoints: Critical APIs exposed via AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management, or GCP Apigee that lack any authentication.
• Broken Authorization: APIs that allow users to access or modify data that doesn't belong to them (Insecure Direct Object Reference).
• No Rate Limiting: APIs that can be brute-forced or spammed, leading to Denial of Service (DoS) or data exfiltration.

3. Insecure Data Storage & Encryption

This is a classic, high-impact failure. While providers have improved defaults, we still find critical data exposed via:

• Public Storage: The infamous publicly exposed S3 bucket, Azure Blob container, or GCP Storage bucket remains a leading cause of massive data breaches.
• Missing Encryption: While "at-rest" encryption is often on by default, we find "in-transit" encryption between internal services is often missed. We also find unencrypted database backups, EBS volumes, or file shares.

4. Unsecured Network Configuration

Leaving the digital front door open. Attackers constantly scan for these, and they are astonishingly common. This includes:

• Unrestricted Inbound Ports: Security Groups (AWS), Network Security Groups (Azure), or GCP Firewall rules left open to the entire internet (0.0.0.0/0) on critical management ports like SSH (22) and RDP (3389).
• Flat Networks: Poor network segmentation that allows an attacker who compromises one low-value server to move laterally to other critical assets.

5. Insufficient Logging, Monitoring & Visibility

This is the "meta-misconfiguration" that allows attackers to operate undetected. Many organizations configure their cloud environments but forget to enable and, more importantly, monitor the logs.

• Disabled Logs: Core services like AWS CloudTrail, Azure Monitor, or GCP's Cloud Logging are not enabled across all regions and services.
• No Alerting: Logs are collected but never analysed. There are no automated alerts for suspicious activity (e.g. a user logging in from an unusual location, or a flurry of access-denied errors), meaning a breach isn't discovered for months.

How We Can Help

Identifying these misconfigurations is the first step. At CYBERPAL, we don't just find problems; we provide clear, actionable remediation guidance to secure your cloud environment. Our Security Architecture and Security Testing services are designed to find and fix these exact issues.

Don't let a simple misconfiguration lead to a major breach. Book a Free Consultation