Cloud computing is on the rise from past few years in modern business sphere, right from data storage, software development to public services. But at the same time even cloud vulnerabilities are increasing rapidly. According to recent “Cloud Strike 2024 Global Threat Report”, there was an increase of 75% intrusions in cloud environments and a 110% rise in cases that involved compromise of cloud workloads and related attacks by cyber attackers. These numbers indicate that attackers find encroach on cloud environments through advanced techniques through a slight loophole in cloud vulnerability management. A weak cloud vulnerability management leads to compromise of user data and significant damage to security teams and overall business. To mitigate these cloud vulnerabilities a reliable and strong security measures are necessary.

This blog explains the top 8 cloud vulnerabilities and actionable solutions to mitigate them.

What is Cloud Vulnerabilities?

A cloud vulnerability is a security flaw or weakness within a cloud computing environment that could be exploited by cyber attacker to attain unauthorized access, compromise data and disrupt services. These vulnerabilities are present at different layers of the cloud infrastructure such as applications, storage, network and communication channels.

Top 8 Cloud Vulnerabilities You Need to Know and How to Mitigate Them

Here’s a breakdown of top 8 cloud vulnerabilities that is often cited by cybersecurity and industry experts:

Cloud Misconfigurations

Cloud misconfigurations are oversights or mistakes in managing cloud resources, which could lead to potential security vulnerabilities, data breaches or unauthorized access. These misconfigurations are the major cause of cloud security incidents and can reveal sensitive data, grant excessive permissions, disrupt the operations and damage reputation of the organization, due to lack of monitoring and logging.

Some of the common reasons for cloud misconfigurations:

1. Insufficient monitoring and logging.

2. Granting excessive permissions to Identity and Access Management (IAM) settings.

3. Publicly exposed or accessible storage buckets such as AWS S3.

4. Exposed credentials or access keys.

5. Network ports and endpoints that are unrestricted.

Mitigation Solution:

To mitigate cloud misconfigurations, security teams must implement automated tools like Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) to constantly monitor and remediate configuration issues. This approach helps reduce dependence on manual processes and minimizes human error. Security best practices such as applying the principle of least privilege, performing regular security audits, and utilizing built-in cloud provider security features can prevent misconfigurations. Besides this, continuous staff training, establishing clear policies and managing cloud resources are also crucial to maintain secure cloud environments.

Insecure API’s

Insecure API is an application programming interface that has insufficient security measures, that makes it vulnerable to exploitation by cyber attackers. It occurs when developers rush the deployment process and does not perform thorough reviews of code or improperly configure the interfaces due changing business or legacy support requirements. If API’s are not secured properly with strong security control measures, they can expose sensitive data and allow unauthorized actions with cloud system.

Some of the common examples of insecure API’s:

1. Broken Object Level Authorization

2. Broken User Authentication

3. Unnecessary Data Exposure or Excessive Data Exposure

4. Insufficient Rate Limiting and Resources

5. Improper Asset Management

Mitigation Solution:

To mitigate insecure APIs in cloud environments, security teams must implement strong authentication and authorization measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and least-privilege access, to make sure only validated users and services interact with your APIs. Apply encryption to all the API traffic with TLS/SSL, implement input validation and rate limiting to prevent exploitation. And use API gateways and monitoring tools to identify and restrict malicious activity. Regularly update and patch APIs, audit logs, and perform security testing to address vulnerabilities quickly.

Lack of Visibility

Lack of Visibility in cloud environment is security team’s inability or inefficiency to completely monitor, track and get insights into all the cloud assets, activities and cloud configurations. Without complete or unified visibility into cloud environment, it would be difficult for security teams to identify security threats, inefficiencies or misconfigurations. This could lead to increase in risk of data breaches and failure of compliance.

Some of the common reasons for lack of visibility:

1. Insufficient user activity monitoring

2. Fragmented log data

3. Complexity in hybrid and multi cloud setup

4. Limited cloud provider monitoring

5. Security tool sprawl

Mitigation Solution:

To mitigate lack of visibility in cloud environments, security teams must implement logging and monitoring solutions to gather data from all the cloud services. Also, they should use AI driven tools, automated reporting and analytics to filter and evaluate logs, incorporate orchestration platforms to unify monitoring and logging across different cloud environments. Besides this, conducting regular audits, and adding cloud native tools can enable quick detection and response to security incidents.

Shadow IT

Shadow IT in cloud environment is the use of cloud applications, services or infrastructure by departments and employees without the approval of organization’s central IT or security teams. This vulnerability occurs when staff look for faster, convenient tools to improve productivity and bypass procurement and security processes. As a result of this, security teams face blind spots and find it difficult to secure or monitor what they do not know exists, which increase the probability of risk in configurations, data breach, compliance violation and data loss.

Some of the common causes for shadow IT:

1. Excessive access to cloud based services

2. Lack of visibility and unclear procurement process

3. Insufficient IT provided solutions

4. Siloed solutions and rapid tech adoption

5. Autonomy in Cloud and DevOps practices

Mitigation Solution:

To mitigate shadow IT, security teams must implement discovery tools and centralized cloud monitoring like Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), security platforms to automatically identify and inventory all cloud assets and applications that are in use. Also, set up clear cloud usage policies, offer secure and approved alternatives, and train employees about the risks of unsanctioned technology to reduce shadow IT. Besides this, automated compliance checks and real-time alerts enables newly created resources to comply with regulatory requirements, that allows IT teams to re-attain control without compromising on innovation.

Poor Access Management

Poor access management in cloud environment is insufficient control over who can access cloud resources, what actions they can perform and how permissions are monitored or assigned. This vulnerability often occurs due to excess permissions, misconfigured identity and access management (IAM) policies, failure to update user access or conduct regular review. As a result, it increase the risk of unauthorized access or exploitation by both malicious insiders and external attackers.

Some of the common causes for poor access management:

1. Poorly defined role based access control

2. Lack of regular access reviews

3. Weak authentication practices

4. Limited user awareness and training

5. Inactive or unmonitored accounts

Mitigation Solution:

To mitigate poor access management, security teams need to implement strong IAM policies, incorporate principle of least privilege and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users, specifically those with elevated privileges. Regular audits and reviews of access rights, centralized access controls, and continuous monitoring of user activities are important for maintaining secure and compliant cloud environments. Besides this, automated tools can help identify and remediate unnecessary permissions that can reduce the risk of data breaches and unauthorized actions.

Malicious Insiders

Malicious insiders in cloud environments are individuals in an organization or the ones who have privileged access at a cloud service provider that can intentionally misuse their access to damage, steal or manipulate data and systems. These insiders could be dissatisfied employees, rogue contractors or administrators who exploit their expertise of cloud architecture and exclusive privileges to bypass the security control to disrupt operations or access sensitive information. They could also use cloud based tools for large scale data theft and Denial of Services (DoS) attacks.

Some of the common causes of malicious insider:

1. Disgruntled employees or contractors

2. Excessive privileges or access

3. Lack of internal monitoring and controls

4. Remote and distributed access.

Mitigation Solution:

To prevent malicious insiders in the cloud environments, security teams must implement strict access controls by applying least privilege, multi factor authentication (MFA), continuous monitoring and behavior analytics to help identify suspicious activities at the earliest. Along with this, regular security training for security teams, strong encryption and routine audits creates a strong defense against insider threats.

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

Zero-day vulnerabilities in cloud environments are undisclosed security flaws or weaknesses in cloud software, services, infrastructure that could be misused by cyber attackers before developers can release patches. These vulnerabilities are riskier in cloud ecosystems because of their nature and allows attackers to compromise multiple systems, when a single vulnerability is exploited. Such vulnerabilities could also let attackers execute arbitrary code on cloud servers that could significantly impact global businesses.

Some of the common causes of zero-day vulnerabilities:

1. Insufficient security testing

2. Weak cloud security

3. Delayed patch management

4. Delayed incident response

5. Sophisticated attack methods

Mitigation Solution:

To prevent zero-day vulnerabilities in cloud environments security teams need to implement constant real-time monitoring and advanced threat detection to detect malicious activities and potential vulnerabilities quickly. They also must automate the patch management, keep all software components up to date, and segment networks to limit the spread of attacks. Besides this, managing a reliable and strong incident response plans, regular data backups helps in rapid recovery and reduces the impact if a zero-day attack occurs.

Human Error

Human errors in cloud environment are mistakes accidently committed by individuals such as developers, administrators that invites operational risks and security vulnerabilities. Such mistakes could prove to be expensive to the security teams in future, if real time oversight is not implemented.

Some of the common causes of human error:

1. Public access to storage buckets

2. Misunderstanding of shared responsibilities.

3. Failure to patch systems

4. Lack of real time oversight

5. Failure to update credentials

Mitigation Solution:

To mitigate human error, security teams are required to automate configuration management and security monitoring. Implement strict access controls and segmentation, conduct regular training on cloud security best practices, and regularly review cloud resources for policy violations.

Final Thoughts

By implementing the above mitigation solutions, security teams can effectively prevent cloud vulnerabilities. Akto is designed to address such critical cloud vulnerabilities and more with its comprehensive API security platform. It provides continuous discovery of APIs such as shadow and zombie APIs and ensures that no endpoint is overlooked. Akto detects misconfigurations such as exposed or unauthenticated APIs and lack of rate limiting, which can result in unauthorized or excessive access. With an exhaustive library of over 1,000 test cases, Akto can cover common vulnerabilities like XSS, SSRF, SQL Injection as well as authentication and authorization weaknesses. Akto integrates easily into CI/CD pipelines and enables automated security testing and real-time monitoring to ensure continuous protection of APIs in the production environments.

Secure your APIs from attacks by contacting Akto API security champions. Book a demo today!