Cloud Security Attacks: Types & Best Practices

Cloud security is a must-have for every organization that decides to expand its business on the cloud. Cloud security includes security of all the data, applications, and infrastructures related to the cloud. Organizations must be fully aware of the current cloud security attacks to improve their cloud security.

According to recent statistics, 39% of businesses experienced a cloud-based data breach in the past 12 months. Another one of the reports stated that in 2023, the average cost of a data breach for organizations using the public cloud was $4.98 million.

In this blog post, we will get to know what cloud security attacks are and what harm they can bring to organizations. Also, we will see ten of the most important cloud security attacks. We’ll discuss common attack vectors and approaches that attackers use in cloud environments. Besides, we will learn about the required practices to avoid these threats and how SentinelOne can help manage them.

What are Cloud Security Attacks?

Cloud security attacks are activities initiated by attackers over cloud computing architecture to get access to sensitive data or resources. These attacks manipulate resources and data on the cloud in an unauthorized manner. Cloud security attacks are intentional and take advantage of common vulnerabilities or misconfigurations present in cloud infrastructure.

Cloud security attacks differ from traditional threats since cloud environments have a different set of unique characteristics, such as:

1. Multi-tenancy Risks: Coud is isolated in nature, which means it keeps two different tenants or organizations completely unaware of each other, but at the time of the attack, this isolation can be breached.
2. Scalability of Threats: The cloud follows distributed architecture. If an attacker attacks it, the threat can easily spread across different resources or even affect multiple clients of that cloud service provider.
3. Data Mobility Challenges: Data is a crucial part of any organization, and it constantly moves between services and on-premises systems, which can be attacked by attackers if not encrypted.
4. API-centric Threats: Multiple cloud attacks are focused on exploiting the vulnerabilities in the APIs that are used for cloud service integration.

Motivations Behind Cloud Attacks

Attackers attacking the cloud have some common motivations. It is important for organizations to understand them so they can protect their cloud infrastructure better.

1. Data Theft: One of the biggest motivations for attackers attacking the cloud environment is data theft. Stolen data can be sold on the dark web or to telemarketing companies.
2. Service Disruption: Some attacks are done just to disrupt the operation of an organization by disrupting the cloud services used by them. Disruption can cause service downtime and financial losses for businesses.
3. Resource Hijacking: Attackers often hijack cloud resources for their own selfish purposes, such as crypto mining.
4. Espionage: State-sponsored attackers or competitors may target cloud systems to gather intelligence or gain competitive advantages.

Impact of Cloud Security Attacks

Organizations can be impacted in multiple different ways while going through a cloud security attack. Let’s discuss a few of them.

• Financial Losses

Cloud security attacks can cause major financial damage to organizations. The immediate costs that fall upon an organization typically include incident response, system recovery, and potential ransom payments. However, the financial impact does not stop there. Businesses may sustain huge losses due to operational downtime, productivity decline, and theft of intellectual property or financial data.

• Reputation Damage

The reputational impact of a cloud security attack can be both severely devastating and lasting. If news of the breach reaches the public, customer trust may decrease, resulting in the loss of clients and challenges in acquiring new customers. Organizations’ partners and other stakeholders also become exposed to the threat of a decreased reputation.

• Regulatory Compliance Issues

Cloud security attacks can also cause harm to an organization’s regulatory compliance status. Industries working with sensitive data, such as the healthcare, finance, and government sectors, have already established various data protection acts, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. These regulations have strict security guidelines and need timely data breach notification.

10 Critical Cloud Security Attacks in 2024

Some of the most critical security attacks that can disrupt the organization’s operations are listed as follows:

#1. Data Exfiltration

Data exfiltration means when an attacker is able to do an unauthorized transfer of data from the organization’s account to their account. These kinds of attacks are increasing, and they are a very big threat to organizations since they can leak all their sensitive data in this form.

In 2024, WazirX faced a data breach attack, which was a combination of a data exfiltration attack and an IAM attack in which an unauthorized transfer of crypto assets from WazirX’s wallets to the attacker’s system was done.

To fight these threats, organizations are implementing data loss prevention (DLP) solutions for cloud environments and using strict access controls and continuous monitoring of data access logs to monitor any suspicious behavior.

#2. Account Hijacking and Credential Theft

With cloud services becoming an important part of business, account hijacking, and credential theft are becoming more common. Attackers have been using more advanced forms of social engineering, such as phishing or credential-stuffing attacks.

Work and devices remotely accessed for work are less protected than the corporation networks, especially when on home networks. This reduces security, which makes these attacks increasingly common. In 2024, reports show that phishing was involved in 36% of security breaches, often leading to the theft of credentials and secrets.

Multi-factor authentication or continuous authentication monitoring should be implemented to be safe from these attacks.

#3. Insider Threats

Insider threats continue to comprise cloud security. These threats usually occur when an employee intentionally causes harm to an organization, or they can also occur due to negligence of the employee that comprises the security. The main issue that needs to be handled by an organization is finding the correct balance between employee privacy and the security measures that need to be taken for the security of an organization.

In 2023, MGM Resorts faced an insider threat in the form of a social engineering attack, which led to 36 hours of service downtime and huge financial loss.

Thus, in 2024, organizations are more bent toward implementing solid security measures using access control mechanisms and behavioral analytics to find any suspicious behavior.

#4. Denial of service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks

DoS and DDos are amongst the most dangerous cloud security attacks that lead to complete disruption of cloud service. Attackers make use of botnets and IoT devices to carry the attack on a larger scale, which can overwhelm cloud resources. Cloud services are interconnected with each other, thus the effect transfers from one service to another and to the organizations as well.

One of the biggest DDoS attacks was experienced by GitHub, with traffic peaks reaching 1.9 Tbps. The attack utilized a new attack vector involving UDP-based memcached servers.

To be safe from these attacks, cloud providers are improving their traffic analysis capabilities and implementing more filtering mechanisms.

#5. Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) Attacks

MiTM attacks are becoming harder to track and control because attackers are using techniques, such as SSL stripping, which changes the connection from HTTPS to HTTP. These attacks take advantage of misconfigured cloud services and exploit vulnerabilities in SSL/TLS protocols.

Researchers identified potential MITM vulnerabilities in 5G networks that allow attackers to identify any cellular device in the world.

To counter this, organizations are implementing stronger encryption standards and certificate pinning techniques. There’s also an increased focus on securing API communications, which are often targeted in MiTM attacks.

#6. Malware Injection

Malware injection refers to the actions of attackers when they find different ways to inject or embed malicious or vulnerable code into the cloud workload. This causes data theft and service disruption and gives attackers an entry point for future attacks.

In 2020, there was a SolarWind attack that happened where attackers injected malicious code into SolarWinds’ Orion software system, which affected around 18,000 customers.

To save themselves from this kind of attack, organizations are implementing peer-to-peer and senior-level code reviews. They have started investing in malware detection tools, and implementing containerization has become a constant practice for network segmentation.

#7. Ransomware Attacks

In the past few years, ransomware attacks have increased in number. These attacks encrypt the cloud-stored data or lock the user out of their cloud services. Since the cloud is interconnected, this attack quickly spreads out across the entire organization’s cloud infrastructure.

One of the most notable ransomware attacks happened in 2022, the LAUSD Ransomware Attack. It happened in a school district, and around 600,000 students’ data was stolen under this attack and sold on the dark web.

Organizations have shifted their focus to backup and recovery strategies in case attacks happen. They are using AI-driven threat detection systems to identify ransomware attacks quickly.

#8. API Attacks

APIs have become a central part of cloud operations by helping users communicate between different cloud services. They have also become a prime target for attackers. API vulnerabilities can lead to data exposure, unauthorized access, and service disruptions.

One of the API-related security incidents occurred in 2024, T-Mobile Data Breach,  which affected 37 million customer accounts. The breach occurred through a single API without proper authorization.

Organizations are handling API attacks by implementing more API security measures, including stricter authentication, rate limiting, and continuous monitoring of API traffic for anomalies.

#9. Cloud Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is when attackers gain access to an organization’s cloud computing resources to mine cryptocurrency. These attacks cause increased costs of cloud resources, reduced performance for business-related operations, and potential security breaches.

TeamTNT Cryptojacking Campaign happened in 2021, which targeted poorly secured Docker and Kubernetes clusters in cloud environments. The campaign affected thousands of cloud instances across multiple cloud service providers.

Cloud providers and organizations are enhancing their monitoring capabilities to detect unusual resource usage patterns that will indicate cryptojacking activities.

#10. Supply Chain Attacks

Supply chain attacks target cloud services and providers. These attacks exploit vulnerabilities in the software supply chain to compromise cloud services or gain access to multiple organizations simultaneously.

In 2024, attackers exploited  XZ Utils, a data compression utility present in nearly most of the Linux systems. This attack leads to the attacker bypassing the secure shell authentication and having the same access as the administrator managing the main system.

To avoid this risk, organizations have increased their focus on vendor security assessments, software composition analysis, and implementing zero-trust architectures in cloud environments.

Attack Vectors and Techniques in Cloud Environments

Attackers are always on the lookout for different ways and techniques to exploit the cloud environment. Some of the techniques used by attackers are listed below:

Misconfigured Cloud Services and Unsecured APIs

Misconfiguration is one of the biggest reasons that causes cloud security attacks. Organizations might fail to do proper configuration, which leads to an attacker exploiting improperly configured storage buckets, databases, or security groups to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.

Another reason for attacks is unsecured APIs, which basically happen when proper authentication or encryption is not implemented for the API. It can be exploited by the attacker to get some data or post some malicious data to the service to which the API connects.

Weak Authentication and Access Controls

Weak authentication and access controls leave a big hole in the security of an organization. They make the cloud environment vulnerable. Many data breaches occur because of leaked credentials or improper access management.

Attackers gain access to these credentials when they are weak, have been reused at multiple places, or are missing multi-factor authentication. Once the attackers are inside using the credentials, due to insufficient access control, they can move around in the cloud environment.

Vulnerabilities in Shared Resources

Due to the shared nature of cloud computing, multi-tenancy issues can arise. In a multi-tenant environment, attackers can break free of the isolated environment due to the issues in hypervisors or container engines.

This can lead to attackers gaining access to other organization’s environments and resources. Hardware infrastructure is also not safe, as side-channel attacks such as CPU vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown can be exploited.

Social Engineering and Credential Stuffing

Social engineering tactics and credential-stuffing attacks are some of the most effective methods to compromise cloud environments. Access to the system can be taken by attackers by using phishing emails, pretexting, and other social engineering techniques to trick employees into revealing their credentials.

Credential stuffing basically means when attackers use lists of stolen username/password combinations to exploit the common practice of password reuse across multiple services.

SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Although well-known vulnerabilities, SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) are particularly common for web applications in a cloud environment. The former is related to data leaks, loss of user data, or a very low performance if another server replaces the initial data.

All users who visit the websites are subject to XSS, which can also lead to session hijacking and malware distribution.

Best Practices for Cloud Security

Organizations should implement best practices while using the cloud to be secure from cloud security attacks. Some of the best practices that should be followed are listed as follows:

#1. Implementing Strong Authentication

The risk of threats in the cloud is high, which means that strong authentication mechanisms are a necessity. By this, it does not merely mean creating an authentication of username and password. Instead, organizations will have to implement multi-factor authentication for all the accounts in the organization, especially for those that have more permissions than others.

#2. Encryption of Data at Rest and in Transit

Data should be encrypted both at rest and in transit. For data at rest, there are several encryption algorithms available, like AES and PGP, to encrypt the stored data. For the data in transit, the TLS/SSL protocol should be used to communicate.

#3. Regular Security Audits and Assessments

Regular security audits and assessments should be carried out by organizations for better cloud security. Both internal experts and third-party services should be used for the assessment to ensure that everything is covered. Some of the areas that need to be covered in the security audits are access controls, network security measures, data protection measures from unauthorized use, and compliance with various standards and regulations.

#4. Employee Training and Awareness

It might be surprising to organizations, but human error can be one of the biggest factors behind breaches, and having proper employee training will go a long way in preventing it. The training and awareness will include topics such as identifying phishing attempts, handling sensitive data properly, using cloud services securely, and the importance of security policies.

Mitigate Cloud Security Attacks with SentinelOne

SentinelOne is a platform that helps organizations with different cloud security attacks. There are several features offered by SentinelOne that can be used to protect against cloud security attacks:

1. Autonomous AI: SentinelOne uses AI technology and advanced machine learning to detect and respond to various threats in real-time.
2. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): The feature provides complete visibility and control over endpoints to identify the problem at an early stage.
3. Cloud Workload Protection: SentinelOne protects the cloud workload, containers, and other cloud applications.
4. Behavioral AI: The feature relates to analyzing the behavior of an endpoint. If different behavior patterns are identified, the technology discovers the threat.
5. Automated Response: The platform has the ability to automatically respond to a specific threat, permanently isolating the affected system and rolling back any changes.

Conclusion

Cloud security attacks are complex and continuously changing with time. They consist of data breaches, account hijacking, ransomware, and supply chain attacks that occur in cloud environments. These attacks cause organizations huge fines, reputational damage, and compliance issues with regulatory bodies.

The different vectors and attacking techniques include misconfigured cloud services, weak authentication controls, and shared technology vulnerabilities. Such threats push and drive organizations to deploy modern security mechanisms beyond their traditional security posture.

SentinelOne technology plays a significant role in saving organizations from cloud security attacks. It offers cloud workload protection, a unified platform approach, and AI technology. SentinelOne provides a unified security approach by managing risk and reducing the attack surface. This platform has the ability to autonomously detect and respond to cloud security attacks in real time.

FAQs

What is a cloud security attack?

A cloud security attack is a situation in which the applications and data in the cloud, along with its computing and storage architecture, are attempted to be attacked or exploited. The cloud security attack may result in complete data loss or corruption.

What are the major threats to cloud security?

The biggest threats to cloud security include data leaks, token hijacking, Insider threats, DDoS, and ransomware attacks. API-based attacks and cloud service misconfigurations may also threaten cloud security, and so can side-channel and multi-tenant attacks.

What are cloud security breaches?

A cloud security breach refers to a situation in which a threat actor takes advantage of a vulnerability in the software, hardware, or customization options available in the cloud to gain unauthorized access to data and applications he does not own.

Why SentinelOne for Cloud Security?

SentinelOne is an end-to-end cloud security solution based on AI technology. It consists of autonomous threat detection and protection capabilities, which help keep cloud workloads, containers, and endpoints secure. Many organizations have benefited from its behavioral AI, automated remediation, and unified visibility in cloud management, and they have adopted these features to secure their corporate data from new-age threats.