Despite billions invested in security tools, the leading cause of cloud breaches is still misconfiguration. It’s rarely a zero-day exploit – it’s someone leaving an S3 bucket open, mis-scoping IAM permissions, or forgetting to disable test environments.
The Most Common Mistakes
- Publicly accessible storage buckets.
- “Allow all” firewall and security group rules.
- Over-privileged IAM roles with no time limits.
- Orphaned resources left unmonitored.
The Consequences
Real-world breaches continue to show the cost: customer data exposures, regulatory fines, brand damage. The problem is not the cloud itself – AWS, Azure and GCP all provide security tools. The weakness lies in how humans configure them.
How to Fix It
- Shift-left security: build checks into Infrastructure-as-Code pipelines.
- IAM discipline: principle of least privilege, role separation, time-bound credentials.
- Automated scanning: use tools to catch public endpoints, weak policies, and drift.
- Continuous review: security is not a one-time setup.
Misconfiguration is preventable – but only with processes, automation, and a “security first” culture.