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Intro to Cloud Penetration Testing
Overview
When businesses migrate anything to a cloud infrastructure, penetration testers often find several common security gaps. In this webinar, one of NetSPI’s cloud security experts, VP of Research Karl Fosaaen, will discuss four common cloud security problems. He’ll also cover how Cloud Penetration Testing can help make your cloud security testing program more effective.
Key highlights:
- 0:22 – What is the cloud?
- 1:52 – Common issue #1: Data exposure
- 2:56 – Common issue #2: Access key exposure
- 4:03 – Common issue #3: Privilege issues
- 5:34 – Common issue #4: Entry points to the internal network
- 6:52 – How to prevent these issues
What is the Cloud?
There tends to be a lot of confusion as to what qualifies something in the cloud, and similarly, many different ways to look at the cloud. One of the most important things to understand is the primary cloud hosting services.
The most common cloud hosting services include:
Common Issues with Cloud Security
When data is stored in the cloud, some common issues emerge. The top issues with cloud security include:
1. Data Exposure
AWS has made headlines because of misconfiguration issues that resulted in credential data or personal information being exposed on the internet unintentionally. All cloud providers are at risk of similar issues. Data exposure is one of the most common challenges cloud pentesters see.
2. Access Key Exposure
To access a cloud service, users typically use some type of key, whether for storage services, or SSH keys to get into virtual machines. If attackers find the key, they can gain access to the cloud environment, systems, and sensitive data stored in the cloud.
3. Privilege Issues
Each cloud platform has individual user and rights management within the platform. One of the common issues that pentesters run into is that a user may be given excessive rights or privileges to systems that they weren’t intended to have access to.
4. Entry Points to the Internal Network
Cloud pentesters are frequently seeing that the internal network is becoming more and more integrated with the cloud network via VPN connections. If one of these virtual machines out in the cloud is compromised, an attacker may be able to pivot back to the internal corporate network, and gain access that wasn’t necessarily intended through the cloud.
How to Prevent Common Cloud Security Issues
Businesses can take a few different approaches to assess the security of their cloud environment. One option is integrating cloud service testing into traditional network and application pentesting programs.
However, for any business hosting applications in the cloud, it’s recommended to perform cloud penetration testing specifically. Outside of traditional penetration testing, you can look deeper into cloud penetration testing, where that takes more of a focus on the overall cloud infrastructure, and not just cloud as an auxiliary to normal pentesting services.
NetSPI’s comprehensive Cloud Penetration Testing services follow manual and automated pentesting processes to identify vulnerabilities in AWS, Azure, and GCP cloud infrastructure and can guide your team on how to improve cloud security.
Get started with enhancing your cloud security posture — learn more about NetSPI’s Cloud Penetration Testing Services.
