Cloud Security Issues: 15 Critical Aspects

All companies face security risks. You deal with new challenges daily, but sometimes, you must know what you’re dealing with. Threats can be more nuanced, and understanding their subtle differences and how to map out relationships between your cloud systems, assets, processes, etc. Any attacker who attempts to access sensitive data using APIs or trying to misconfigure them is a threat to your organization.

A complete cloud security strategy will ensure no cracks within your foundation. It will cover every possible angle and give you a holistic view of your cloud security. It will mitigate risks, fine-tune security controls, and defend against insecure coding and deployment issues.

Serverless technologies are gaining prominence in cloud computing but are especially prone to remote attacks on the Internet. These attacks can also target the people who operate them. Social engineering attacks include hijacking user accounts or exploiting vulnerabilities when switching cloud service providers, taking advantage of vendor logins, and any other subtle shifts when migrating workforces. Your adversaries can be aware of these and potentially exploit them.

Cloud Resources are usually hosted on a shared infrastructure, so if one customer’s data is compromised, the others are also affected. Any breach can jeopardize your organization’s confidentiality, integrity, and customer trust. Operating in different industries also involves various regulatory data handling and storage requirements. Navigating these regulations and adhering to these landscapes can be challenging and include spanning multiple jurisdictions.

So there’s a lot we have to unpack when it covers cloud security issues. In this guide, we will explore what they are, what potential impacts these issues may have on your organization, and what you can do about them. You will also learn how to identify them and implement the best practices to mitigate such cloud security issues in the future.

What are Cloud Security Issues?

A cloud security issue is anything that can compromise your data, applications, or users. It also includes threats that can sabotage data sharing or compromise application programming interfaces. Cloud security issues can fragment your security posture and create gaps or blind spots you may not know about. Without hidden threats in your organization, this may lead to their creation, which may surface many years later.

The challenge is managing user data, organizing credentials and accounts, and handling these emerging technologies appropriately. Users may need to learn how to use your cloud security tools and processes, which can create other cloud security issues. Security automation and AI are also not regulated, and we have concerns about AI ethics. Threat actors can harness the latest automation tools to launch the newest breed of attacks.

When we discuss cloud environments, we also deal with logs from many touchpoints. Our organizations generate a lot of information, so we need actionable threat intelligence. There’s also the risk of security data being falsely flagged, and we have to sift through high volumes of alerts.

So cloud-based security issues are not just attack-based, But they’re about how we manage our applications, data, users, and other elements. Not overseeing these areas can create new opportunities for threat actors to act on, leading to data breaches via these cloud-seeker issues. 

Impact of Cloud Security Issues on Organizations

Cloud security issues can have serious consequences if you’re not careful. A tiny misconfiguration can cause ripples throughout your enterprise, which could impact its reputation far into the future. An overlooked policy can give attackers the doorway to gain unauthorized access to sensitive assets. Your company can only lose money if it reacts swiftly. Some repercussions of slower responses include direct financial losses, regulatory fines, and potential lawsuits. However, the hidden cost is far more significant—customers lose confidence once a security breach goes public. You can’t regain their trust that easily for the years to come.

Beyond immediate financial hits, cloud security issues can disrupt mission-critical processes. Downtime from ransomware attacks or denial-of-service exploits leaves staff unable to perform routine tasks and customers unable to access necessary services. The longer the disruption, the more revenue and user loyalty drain away. Compliance lapses due to poor cloud security also pose a threat, with frameworks like PCI-DSS or GDPR levying severe penalties for inadequate safeguards.

In addition, cloud vulnerabilities hurt internal morale and collaboration. If stakeholders perceive the cloud as “unstable” or “unsafe,” teams may become reluctant to adopt or trust new technologies. This mindset can hamper innovation, slow digital transformation, and leave your organization at a competitive disadvantage. Cloud-based security issues aren’t just technical; they’re organizational and require proactive defenses. You need continuous refinement to protect your current and long-term standing.

How to Identify Cloud Security Issues?

Cloud and security issues go hand in hand these days. The best way to identify security issues in the cloud is by thoroughly evaluating your current cloud security posture. You consider all the tools, processes, and systems you have in place. If there are any dormant or inactive accounts, you should scrape them out or dig into them. If an employee leaves your organization, you must review what information they can access. If you are a cloud user, you can use your data in your cloud security to identify the cloud security issues. So, when identifying cloud security issues, you must consider all angles, not just one.

A good starting point would be to check your authentication and authorization mechanisms. Look for configurations and see if they are set up correctly. If there are any weak security controls or improper access permissions, you will want to pay attention to them. Check how your APIs are configured and how because if you are dealing with any external threats, they will give you signs. You also want to look into regulation and compliance issues, so review your cloud security policies and see if they are being appropriately implemented.

To identify further cloud security issues, consult security experts and work with your team. Ensure everyone is on the same page and knows what they are doing. If there is a lack of communication or transparency when mitigating security risks, communicate this with stakeholders. The board should be brought to attention on these issues and many more. It’s not just your users who are affected; everyone who deals with and interacts with your organization.

The first step is to perform a cloud security posture assessment, do cloud audits, and check your compliance. From there, you can use your security tool to conduct vulnerability assessments, check for DDoS attacks, see if all your accounts are secure and not hijacked, and ensure improved visibility. When it comes to human error, that will be outside the scope of these security tools, but based on patterns you can spot by analyzing your threat intelligence, you should be able to take a call if there’s something wrong in your organization. These are some ways you can identify cloud security issues and protect your assets from unauthorized access.

Top 15 Cloud Security Issues in 2025 

An effective cloud security strategy starts with knowing what’s next. Here are 15 cloud security issues to watch out for in 2025, from repeat offenders year after year to brand-new concerns debuting this year.

1. Cloud misconfigurations—Cloud misconfiguration occurs when users don’t make their storage buckets private, set firm IAM defaults, or turn encryption on. These easy vulnerabilities for the average user are quickly exploited by hackers, leading to data exfiltration and/or lateral movement to other cloud assets. 
2. Compliance policy violations—Data breaches are ubiquitous. It’s a matter of what occurs and how companies are inconvenienced, fined, and mortified. Failure to comply with regulations ranging from PCI-DSS to HIPAA to GDPR results in enormous fines and frustrated customers once trust is breached. Yet, with the global reach of the cloud, compliance from region to region complicates the issue. 
3. Account hijacking: Attackers access your credentials remotely and access your cloud control plane. From there, they can manipulate sensitive information or spin up workloads, containers, projects, etc. (seemingly legit SaaS developments). When they’re done corrupting the infrastructure, they can either exfiltrate data (malware like crypto miners may drain sensitive information) or maintain a backdoor for ongoing malicious activity. 
4. Insider threats – Another threat comes from current or past workers with valid access to critical systems. For example, insiders might give others their passwords. While this might be done with malicious intent to abuse access, it could also be accidental, exposing data due to poor security tendencies. 
5. AI Pipeline Risks—Many cloud-based applications use machine learning models to function and engage in commerce, so AI pipelines are at risk. Criminals can tamper with the training data by inserting false entries or modifying the algorithm, creating lousy output. Either way, these efforts lead to distorted evaluations and valuations.
6. Excessive Attack Surface—Rapidly deploying more cloud instances or microservices can unintentionally increase your attack surface. Overlooked or improperly monitored workloads can lead to unauthorized entry points.
7. Insecure APIs – Application Programming Interfaces power the flexibility of modern cloud apps, but unsecured endpoints—whether from weak authentication or unencrypted data transfers—give intruders an easy way to harvest information or run malicious commands.
8. Need for Due Diligence – Rushed adoption of cloud services without thorough review creates gaps in policies, identity management, and configuration. Human oversight—like forgetting to decommission old accounts or failing to test new deployments—remains a leading factor behind breaches.
9. Abuse of Cloud Services – Malicious actors can exploit legitimate cloud resources to scale password-cracking, crypto mining, or host malicious content. When attackers hijack your organization’s cloud services or credentials, they convert your resources into tools for further attacks.
10. Supply Chain Attacks—If your vendor or third-party tool is compromised, malicious code can slip into your application’s lifecycle unnoticed. Supply chain attacks exploit trust relationships, letting attackers spread malware widely without directly breaching your systems first.
11. Container & Kubernetes Vulnerabilities – Misconfigured pods, overly permissive roles, or unpatched Kubernetes clusters offer quick wins for threat actors. With containers proliferating across multi-cloud environments, one insecure cluster can become the soft underbelly of your cloud estate.
12. Cross-Tenant Vulnerabilities – Shared infrastructure underpins cloud computing. If one tenant’s environment is compromised—via hypervisor vulnerability or unpatched virtualization layer—other customers on the same service may also be at risk.
13. Serverless Exploits—Though efficient, serverless functions often run code with privileged permissions, making them attractive targets. Poorly designed triggers and event configurations can allow attackers to escalate privileges or steal data without leaving clear forensic traces.
14. Social engineering: Attackers may impersonate officials and get close to their employees, making them friends with them to get them to divulge sensitive information. Social engineering is the ultimate disguise and cover for them. It could be even worse than malicious insiders since your workers tend to trust verified sources.
15. Spear phishing and malware payloads – Attackers may inject malware into email attachments and try to lure victims via phishing emails. With personalized emails coming in, your employees won’t suspect much. These are not generic and are written after careful research and reconnaissance. They are too convincing.

Best Practices to Mitigate Cloud Security Issues

Some of the best practices you can incorporate to mitigate cloud security issues are: 

• Use strong passwords that are challenging to guess once you implement multi-factor authentication across all your systems and devices. 
• Use advanced firewalls, encrypt data at rest and in transit, and use Virtual Private Networks to conduct data exchanges and transactions. 
• Constantly monitor your incoming and outgoing network traffic and automate your security defenses. 
• Create a backup strategy for vendor outages or interruptions when using cloud services.
• You should also monitor your security logs and review your compliance requirements, as legal regulations can change occasionally and from state to state. Be aware of your and your provider’s share responsibility, and educate your team. Before signing up for any cloud services, ask the vendor about its security measures and see if they align with your organizational requirements.
• You should also conduct penetration testing, vulnerability scans, and regular audits. To improve your security, you can hire third-party specialists, examine SLAs and contracts, and review your access limits.
• Also, encourage accountability by regularly discussing with your team members and addressing your data privacy and security standards and requirements.

How to Address Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud Security Issues?

Strong identity and access management controls can address multi-cloud and hybrid security issues. To do this, ensure your user endpoints are secure and your web browsers are current. Also, employ the principle of least privileged access and conduct regular security audits.

Use automated threat detection, encryption, and compliance monitoring practices. Train your team to recognize and manage risks effectively. They should not fall for typical phishing schemes. Isolate your critical infrastructure and design a plan to quickly restore data in case of a data breach or incident.

Be aware of consumer privacy laws and data security acts, and ensure that your data protection policies are up to date and adhere to them. Adopting a shift-left security approach will also help early on in the development lifecycle of your cloud-based applications.

Detect and Resolve Cloud Security Issues with SentinelOne

SentinelOne Singularity™ Platform can do a lot for your cloud security issues. It can detect threats instantly and remediate them. It can spot cloud misconfigurations, automatically resolve them with its one-click threat remediation, and ensure multi-cloud compliance. SentinelOne can also perform secret scanning for more than 750+ secret types, securing your CI/CD pipelines, GitHub, and GitLab repos.

Its Offensive Security Engine with Verified Exploit Paths™ can enter the mindset of your adversaries and think and act like them before they can exploit your vulnerabilities. So, SentinelOne stays multiple steps ahead of your threat actors and offers a host of security features that will protect you against current threats, future threats, and unknown ones. SentinelOne works great against ransomware, fileless attacks, malware, phishing, social engineering, and even insider threats.

SentinelOne also offers extended endpoint security and threat response measures. So, it goes beyond traditional or on-premise security. You can extend your cloud protection to multi-cloud and hybrid environments as well. Request a free demo today to learn more about how SentinelOne can help your organization.

Conclusion

Now you know how to address your cloud computing security issues. Focus on building a proactive security strategy and examining threats holistically. As long as you work with your team, collect feedback, and constantly iterate, you’ll be well on your way to enhancing your defenses. SentinelOne can also help resolve security vulnerabilities, seal gaps blindspots, and protect your enterprise.

FAQs

1. What are the leading cloud security issues?

Some leading cloud security issues are account hijacking, insider threats, spear phishing, fileless attacks, keylogging, and ransomware.

2. Why are misconfigurations a significant cloud security concern?

Misconfigurations affect the operation of your cloud accounts and groups, affecting collaborative workflows and causing data leaks, which is why they are significant security concerns. 

3. What steps can organizations take to prevent cloud security issues?

Organizations should start by implementing a strong CNAPP solution like SentinelOne. They should also begin performing regular cloud security audits, pen tests, and reviews of compliance policies.

4. How can businesses protect against account hijacking in the cloud?

Businesses can protect against account hijacking by encrypting data and using multi-factor authentication. They should also set up alerts for unusual login attempts, back up data, and limit privileged user access.

5. Are hybrid and multi-cloud environments more vulnerable?

Yes, hybrid and multi-cloud ecosystems are more vulnerable since more accounts, users, and cloud services are involved. Their attack surfaces keep expanding.