July 2023
Misconfigurations in the cloud
Cloud offerings are always on the rise: they offer many advantages over on-premise solutions and expand the use cases to an almost infinite number of possibilities. But these endless possibilities also bring with them a risk factor: an equally endless number of configurations – and the misconfigurations associated with them.
But let's start from the beginning:
What is a misconfiguration?
Misconfiguration is defined as omissions or making mistakes during the configuration of cloud services or applications that can lead to security vulnerabilities or risks. Some possibilities for such configuration errors are as follows:
- Misconfigured access controls
- Insecure network configurations
- Incorrect security group settings
- Misconfigured storage buckets
Based on the examples, it can already be guessed that incorrect configuration of “access controls” can have drastic consequences, including data leakage, unauthorized access, non-compliance and financial loss. In the worst case, such a mistake can even lead to the insolvency of a company. Some prominent examples are the Capital One data breach in 2019 or the AWS S3 bucket data leak in 2018.
But how do these misconfigurations come about?
As the name suggests, these things happen because of errors in the configuration of the services. These can arise for a variety of reasons, whether it's a lack of knowledge, miscommunication, or simply human error.
And what can I do to avoid misconfigurations?
There are many ways to reduce the risk of misconfigurations. Organizations can offer training and awareness programs, implement best practices, or use automated misconfiguration detection tools. They should also conduct regular security audits and, if even the best preparation has failed, have a comprehensive crisis response plan in place.
Of course, our team at it-economics will be happy to help you. We have certified cloud experts who can help avoid misconfigurations and teach your team strategies to prevent future misconfigurations. Feel free to contact me at [email protected]!
Author
Tobias Krichel
Managing Consultant & Security IT expert