Igal Gofman, XM head of security research, and Yaron Shani, XM senior security researcher, in their research, found a new attack vector in cloud providers API ( application programming interface), that gives miscreants a window to access secured cloud data. Public Cloud Infrastructure, has added a new invisible management layer, that complicates the procedure creating security challenges, that requires better understanding. Often organizations fail to understand this management layer and hence lag in securing it, inviting attacks.
Working with public cloud infrastructure without the right understanding of risks and security challenges may lead to fatal consequences with customer risks, as was the case in Capital One breach."Current security practices and controls are not sufficient to mitigate the risk posed by a misunderstanding of the public cloud", said the researchers.
Findings in the research
Researchers found that public cloud providers' APIs' accessibility over the internet opens a window for adversaries to exploit and gain access to confidential data on the cloud. And current security systems and practices are not equipped to beat the risk posed by misconfiguration of the cloud.
People who are in charge of managing cloud resources can easily gain access to APIs' using software kits and command-line tools as they are part of the development and IT team. "Once those account credentials are compromised, gaining access to high-value resources is trivial," the researchers say. Cloud APIs' can be accessed through the internet, with the correct API key, for example, the Command line interface tool, which saves the user's credentials which can be accessed by the cloud provider.
Attackers don't need a very sophisticated approach to sneak in cloud API, "I ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
