As the digital landscape evolves, so do the threats facing all organizations, especially as they move their operations to the cloud. Projections indicate that by 2025, a staggering 85% of organizations will rely on cloud-native platforms.
With this shift comes increased interest from malicious actors looking to exploit vulnerabilities and gain access to sensitive data of all types. In light of this, advanced penetration testing techniques are necessary to counter the ever-changing cloud security threat landscape.
In this article, we will explore seven key strategies through which penetration testing can fortify your cloud infrastructure, ensuring its resilience against potential threats including data exfiltration.
1: Cloud-Specific Testing Techniques
Cloud computing has revolutionized operations, but it's also increased risk and security concerns. Data in transit and at rest may be intercepted by malicious actors, making advanced penetration techniques essential to identifying potential vulnerabilities and cloud-specific threats.
Cloud pen testing involves examining a cloud service's security and your specific cloud instance configurations to ensure they align with the industry's best practices. This helps minimize potential security risks. Testing should also re-evaluate custom policies to identify security gaps, such as employees with excessive permissions which might create an insider threat.
For cloud-based storage, penetration testers evaluate for misconfigurations that could potentially leave data exposed to the outside. Endpoint security validation is important too, as endpoints access your cloud instances. Testing ensures proper configuration and lowers the risk of data compromise. It should also include device compliance checks since unauthorized devices can create security flaws.
2: Serverless and Container Security
Serverless and container tech is today's cloud computing game-changer, simplifying app development, deployment, and scaling. With serverless computing, devs can create and run apps without worrying about a server, as cloud providers can allocate resources on the fly when needed.
Container tech wraps an app with its environment for lightweight portability across various computing settings. This ensures consistency and efficiency in deployment. Both these systems are getting more popular based on their scalability, cost-efficiency, and a faster time-to-market for apps.
Serverless and container environments come with new security challenges to consider, which are different from the usual cloud security standards. This means companies will have to increase their security posture to keep these new digital environments safe.
Serverless security testing will help you spot vulnerabilities at the function level by performing code-level security assessments.
3: Privacy and Encryption
The most crucial part of cloud security is data encryption and privacy assurance. Many organizations are putting sensitive information such as HIPAA into the cloud and this presents additional security requirements which if not adhered to properly can result in legal action and substantial fines should an incident occur.
You can't ignore encryption and privacy and you can't take encryption seriously without having it assessed by hiring a 3rd party professional to perform a deep dive. Your encryption might seem unbreakable, but you'd be amazed at what a testing team can do in just a few days or hours. Validating your encryption protocols for data in transit and at rest minimizes the risk of unauthorized access or a catastrophic data spill.
4: API Security
APIs let programs communicate with each other, so they're crucial for modern businesses. Sometimes, you'll create your industry-specific APIs. While that's great for efficiency, it means you've got security-related items to consider before and after deployment.
Cloud-based APIs can have security issues like data exposure and authentication. Pen testers can review and test your API, find vulnerabilities, and suggest the best ways to keep things secure. But don't stop there.
Keep an eye on your API security. Continuous monitoring is crucial if you want to stay secure in the long term. New threats and exploits are always emerging and adversely affect your API security footprint.
5: Multi-Cloud Security
Your cloud system may span across multiple platforms. This may make sense for specific industries or companies but can lead to unpredictable cybersecurity threats. Skilled penetration testers are necessary to identify unique vulnerabilities from interactions between cloud services.
Part of the challenge as a multi-cloud user is creating a unified security plan. You will need security practices that are effective across all cloud platforms. In some cases during a cloud security assessment, penetration testers may need to work closely with cloud service vendors. This may foster a better understanding of the unique security features and potential vulnerabilities introduced by interacting systems.
6: Threat Modeling and Risk Assessment
Penetration Testing is great because it lets you do threat modeling and risk assessments to find potential security flaws in your cloud computing environment. You can then fix them before attackers get a chance to exploit those weaknesses. To do this, you need a deep understanding of the specific cloud platforms and the vulnerabilities that might be used to compromise them.
A risk-based approach is key for cloud security because it helps you prioritize risks and focus your efforts on the ones with the highest potential impact. In an ideal world, you'd protect against all threats equally well, but in the real world, personnel and financial resources are often limited. That's why a risk assessment is an essential part of your cyber security budget, and integral to a well-thought-out cyber security plan.
7: Incident Response Testing
As Mike Tyson said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." You might have thorough threat modeling and risk assessment, but you still need to be prepared for a cloud security breach. That's why penetration testers do more than just attempt to break into your systems.
They can also create a simulation exercise with an imaginary attack in a controlled environment. This allows the testing team to observe the organization's response and see if everyone sticks to the plan. In the chaos of a cyber attack, all too often roles and responsibilities fall by the wayside.
That’s why testing your incident response capabilities is crucial. A real-world test is one of the few ways to see if your plan will function as intended in the event of an incident.
CONTACT JANUS FOR ADVANCED PEN TESTING
In the dynamic world of cloud computing, advanced penetration testing is vital for protecting infrastructures against complex threats. Adapting to the cloud's unique Security challenges ensures organizations can fully utilize cloud technology while maintaining the best possible security posture. As the cloud becomes more and more a key part of business, tailored penetration testing will become essential to every organization's cybersecurity strategy.
JANUS is a standard and advanced cloud-pen testing company that can help keep your cloud systems locked down against threats. With over 35 years of experience and more than 1,700 satisfied clients, we offer assurance that we know what we're doing and get it right the first time.
Our track record speaks for itself, with endorsements from 32 federal agencies and 102 state agencies attesting to the quality of our work. Contact us today to discover how we can assist you in safeguarding your on-premises and cloud-based systems against cybercriminals and nation-state actors.
