Why Do Cloud Misconfigurations Still Remain a Major Issue?

According to the National Security Agency, cloud misconfigurations represent the greatest threat to cloud security (NSA). According to the 2022 IBM Security X-Force Cloud Threat Landscape Report, cloud vulnerabilities have increased by an astounding 28% since last year, and the number of cloud accounts available on the dark web has increased by 200% during the same period.

Given the increasing number of vulnerabilities and the terrible consequences of cloud breaches, it is now clearly obvious how important proper cloud security is. So the issue is, are malicious hackers being made aware of your company’s misconfigured cloud resources?

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Cloud Misconfigurations Put Data at Risk

Misconfigurations in the cloud are possible vulnerabilities. Because misconfigured cloud assets can open the door to the theft of location data, passwords, financial information, phone numbers, health records, and other sensitive personal data, malicious attackers are always searching for them. Following that, threat actors might use this information to execute phishing and other social engineering attacks.

There are multiple causes for these misconfigurations. One reason for this is that default settings, which are usually too open, are not changed.

One more is configuration drift, which refers to modifications made on-the-fly to multiple components without consistency across cloud assets or auditing to minimize discrepancies.

Misconfigurations are more frequent in cloud-native platforms due to their extreme complexity. Overworked staff that lacks the depth of knowledge to identify and correct the misconfigurations further increases these risks.

However, one of the most typical causes of incorrect cloud settings is a misunderstanding of who is in charge of protecting cloud assets. Your organization needs to understand the Shared Responsibility Model for this reason.

According to this approach, the cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Service (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or another, is only responsible for the infrastructure of the cloud. You and your company, who are their customers, are entirely in charge of ensuring the security of all of your data, workloads, applications, and other assets.

Common Cloud Misconfiguration Types

Most cloud misconfigurations, in the broadest sense, are configurations that are left in a position that is advantageous to the objectives of malicious attackers. The most common categories are as follows:

1. Excessively open access to the cloud. According to IBM’s Threat Landscape Report, cloud identities were overly privileged in 99% of the cases analyzed.
2. Both inbound and outgoing ports are without limitations.
3. Errors in managing secret data, including passwords, encryption keys, API keys, and admin credentials.
4. Leaving the ICMP running (Internet Control Message Protocol).
5. Monitoring and logging were disabled.
6. Unsecured backups
7. Security measures for clouds are not validated.
8. Unblock HTTP/HTTPS ports.
9. Excessive potential access to hosts, virtual machines, and containers
10. Dangling DNSs. This happens when a subdomain name is changed without the underlying CNAME entry being deleted, which could allow an attacker to register it.

How to Minimize Your Risk From Cloud Misconfigurations

The possibility of cloud configuration errors is always available. Both authorized customers and nefarious attackers can access cloud servers at any time. The attack surface of the organization grows with each new cloud deployment.

Your organization can actively fight against attackers looking to take advantage of cloud misconfiguration by taking the following actions:

1. By combining security and DevOps in a single team, implement your security configuration program at the build stage.
2. A wide range of skills necessary to configure a dynamic cloud environment should be acquired through development or hiring. DevOps expertise, automation, networking and internet protocol knowledge, security engineering knowledge, understanding of authentication and security protocols, and other skills are examples of cloud security skills.
3. Apply the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) to all system access for both computers and people.
4. Give administrators only what they need to do their particular tasks—the absolute minimal amount of time.
5. Ensure the validity of the current permissions regularly.
6. Maintain visibility through good monitoring. Make sure, for instance, that the DevOps team has access to the entire stack. They only need a reader or viewer access so they may monitor what is happening; they don’t need admin privileges.
7. Don’t rely just on the monitoring system provided by your cloud provider. Accept monitoring that can be applied to all of your multi-cloud and hybrid settings.
8. Configure it by the Shared Security Responsibility concept by understanding it. Your cloud provider cannot ensure the security of your data, applications, or other assets.

Above all, keep in mind that setting up complex and hybrid cloud systems correctly is a journey rather than a goal. Continue auditing. Maintain visibility. Recruit the staff and knowledge you require to handle this difficult and important responsibility.

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