March 02, 2025

The Ripple Effect: When a small cloud misstep shakes the whole system

Yakul Khanduja

Security Architect

Connect

What were you doing last Tuesday? Just a regular day, right? Now, picture that same day, but with a twist.

Imagine a regular Tuesday afternoon when the DevOps team at an organisation in Australia noticed something odd: a sudden spike in resource consumption within the cloud environment. Data^#3 was quick to take action, and on closer inspection, our team discovered an unauthorised script mining cryptocurrency on their virtual machines. We realised this was not an isolated incident, a small misconfiguration in their orchestration system had left the environment vulnerable to exploitation. Thankfully, swift action limited the damage, no data was exfiltrated, however the incident underscored a glaring truth: even the smallest oversight in the cloud can lead to catastrophic consequences.

This story is not unique. In an era where IT teams are rapidly adopting cloud technologies like containers, serverless architectures, and virtual machines, the complexity of managing these environments has skyrocketed.

DevOps engineers are under pressure to maintain uptime, ensure scalability, and deploy features quickly. This leads to misconfigurations, lack of security controls, not thoroughly reviewing configurations and lack of attention to details. Security missteps are not a question of “if” but “when.”

This is a Security Leader challenge and understanding this dynamic is critical. As a leader, understanding this dynamic is critical. The role isn’t just about managing risks at a strategic level but also about having a plan that empowers your engineering teams to build and maintain secure systems in an increasingly hostile cyber landscape.

Before diving into a plan of action, it’s essential to understand the common risks teams face in cloud environments.

What we’ve learned in the field:

Vulnerability exploitation: Containers, serverless functions, and virtual machines often rely on third-party libraries and base images. A single unpatched vulnerability can be exploited by attackers to gain access.

Misconfigurations: Simple errors like leaving storage buckets open, misconfigured IAM roles, or weak API security can expose sensitive data or allow unauthorised access.

Unsecured APIs: APIs are critical for integrating cloud services, but poorly secured APIs can serve as entry points for attackers to manipulate data or access resources.

Excessive privileges: Overly permissive access controls for users and services increase the attack surface, enabling attackers to move laterally across environments.

Data exfiltration: Attackers are increasingly targeting private data stored in cloud environments, leveraging vulnerabilities to infiltrate and extract valuable information.

Cryptojacking: Exploiting compute resources for cryptocurrency mining is a common tactic, often going unnoticed for extended periods.

Insufficient logging and monitoring: Lack of visibility across cloud assets makes it harder to detect and respond to threats in real-time.

Plan to empower the engineering team

As a security leader, the goal should be to bridge the gap between security and engineering, ensuring the DevOps team is equipped to manage risks proactively. Here’s a five-step plan I have developed and want share to help you secure your cloud environment:

Step 1. Build security into the development pipeline

Implement DevSecOps practices: Integrate security checks directly into CI/CD pipelines. Use tools to scan for vulnerabilities in code, containers, and dependencies before deployment.

Shift left: Educate developers and DevOps teams to think about security early in the development lifecycle, reducing the likelihood of issues reaching production – Secure by Design.

Step 2. Establish clear policies and guardrails

Define access controls: Implement strict Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to ensure the principle of least privilege.

Use predefined templates: Leverage infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates with baked-in security configurations to minimise human error.

Step 3. Provide the right tools and automation

Adopt cloud security platforms: Invest in tools that provide real-time visibility, compliance checks, and automated remediation across your cloud landscape.

Enable continuous monitoring: Ensure your team has access to dashboards and alerts for monitoring anomalies, unauthorised access, and suspicious activities.

Step 4. Regularly test and train

Conduct red team exercises: Simulate attack scenarios, such as data exfiltration or crypto mining, to test defences and improve your incident response capabilities.

Train DevOps engineers: Offer regular training on cloud security best practices, tools, and threat detection techniques.

Step 5. Foster a culture of collaboration

Break down silos: Create channels for continuous communication between the security and engineering teams. Regular meetings and shared dashboards can help align priorities.

Recognise and reward efforts: Acknowledge the contributions of engineers in maintaining security to encourage proactive engagement.

Remember – Security is a shared responsibility

A small misconfiguration might seem trivial, but as the opening story illustrates, it can lead to significant consequences.

Cloud environments offer unparalleled flexibility and scalability, but they also come with unique challenges. DevOps engineers are the frontline defenders of these systems, but they cannot do it alone. As a security leader, your leadership is critical in providing the tools, policies, and culture that enable the engineering team to stay ahead of threats.

Data^#3 brings deep expertise in planning, designing, and deploying secure cloud technologies while establishing governance frameworks to mitigate risk. By collaborating with trusted service provider like Data^#3 and implementing a proactive plan, security can be turned from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage, ensuring your organisation is prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.

Speak to a Data^#3 security specialist today to elevate your security posture.

Strengthen your cyber resilience

In today’s threat landscape, organisations must adapt to stay resilient against cyber threats. This workshop, guided by cyber security experts, will help you self-assess your organisation’s security maturity using a proven framework based on the updated Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Zero Trust Model.

Discover how your organisation measures up across four key pillars:

Security Operations
Zero Trust
Secure Network
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)

Your assessment report includes:

Actionable insights to identify and close security gaps.
A roadmap to improve business continuity and compliance.

Qualification criteria

In order to get started you must meet the below eligibility criteria:

Minimum 300 employees in hybrid cloud environment.
Must have an active interest and intent to improve your security efficacy.
Must understand your infrastructure environment from a holistic perspective – maybe one or more people from your organisation.
Must be ready to attend a half day workshop either at your location, at Data^#3 offices or virtually.

If you meet the eligibility criteria and would like to proceed with a no cost Security Resilience Assessment, contact a Data^#3 Security Specialist below.

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