Agentless Cloud Exposure Assessment
Agentless Cloud Exposure Assessment is a cybersecurity methodology that evaluates the security posture of cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) without requiring the installation of software agents, sensors, or kernels on the target workloads (Virtual Machines, Containers, or Serverless functions).
Instead of running inside the target asset's operating system, agentless solutions leverage the Cloud Service Provider's (CSP) native APIs and storage mechanisms to perform "side-scanning." This approach provides wide visibility into vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and secrets by analyzing the infrastructure from the "outside-in."
How Agentless Assessment Works
The agentless process functions through a series of non-invasive steps that occur alongside the live environment, rather than within it.
API Connection: The security platform connects to the cloud environment using a read-only Identity and Access Management (IAM) role. This grants it permission to inspect metadata and infrastructure settings.
Snapshot Creation: To inspect the contents of a Virtual Machine (VM) or container, the system triggers a cloud-native snapshot of the workload's storage volume (disk).
Side-Scanning: This snapshot is mounted to a temporary, isolated scanning engine separate from the production environment. The engine analyzes the file system, registry, and configuration files.
Metadata Analysis: Simultaneously, the system queries cloud APIs to gather context about network rules (Security Groups), identity permissions (IAM), and encryption settings.
Correlated Risk Scoring: The findings from the disk scan (e.g., "This server has a critical vulnerability") are combined with the API metadata (e.g., "This server is exposed to the public internet") to determine the true risk exposure.
Key Detection Capabilities
Agentless assessment covers a broad spectrum of static risks that exist on the file system or in the cloud configuration.
Vulnerability Management: Detects unpatched software, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), and outdated operating systems packages.
Secret Scanning: Identifies hardcoded passwords, API keys, and encryption certificates left inside code or configuration files on the disk.
Misconfiguration Detection: Flags insecure cloud settings, such as unencrypted storage buckets, overly permissive firewall rules, or disabled logging.
Malware Detection: Performs static analysis on files within the snapshot to identify known malware signatures or suspicious binaries.
Inventory Management: Provides a complete bill of materials (BOM) for all software and dependencies installed across the cloud estate.
Operational Advantages
The shift toward agentless architecture is driven by several operational efficiencies that address the limitations of traditional agents.
100% Coverage: Because it uses API enumeration, agentless scanning discovers every asset in the cloud account, including stopped VMs and orphaned storage volumes that active agents cannot see.
Zero Performance Impact: Since scanning occurs on a copy (snapshot) of the data, there is no CPU or memory overhead on the production workload. It eliminates "agent fatigue," where security tools slow applications.
Frictionless Deployment: There is no need to install, update, or troubleshoot software on thousands of servers. Deployment uses a single IAM role, providing instant visibility across the entire environment.
Immutable Infrastructure Support: It effectively secures environments where installing software is difficult or impossible, such as proprietary appliance VMs, serverless functions, or distroless containers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does agentless assessment provide real-time protection? No. Agentless assessment is periodic (usually scanning every 12 to 24 hours). It provides a comprehensive view of the risk posture but cannot block active attacks or inspect process memory in real time, as an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agent can.
Can agentless scanning see encrypted data? Yes, provided the scanner has the correct permissions. The scanning engine uses the cloud provider's Key Management Service (KMS) to transparently decrypt the snapshot for analysis, without exposing the keys to human operators.
Is agentless assessment only for public clouds? Yes, primarily. This methodology relies on the specific APIs and snapshot capabilities of public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP). It is generally not applicable to traditional on-premise bare-metal servers without virtualization layers that support similar snapshotting.
Does this replace the need for agents entirely? It depends on the goal. For Post-Deployment visibility and risk assessment, agentless is often superior. However, for Runtime Protection (blocking a process from executing or stopping a file download), an agent is still required. Many organizations use a hybrid approach.
ThreatNG and Agentless Cloud Exposure Assessment
ThreatNG serves as an external, Agentless Cloud Exposure Assessment engine that validates the security of cloud environments from the "Outside-In." Unlike internal agentless tools that rely on cloud provider APIs and disk snapshots, ThreatNG assesses the cloud perimeter exactly as an attacker sees it—scanning public-facing infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP) without requiring any permissions, role assumptions, or internal access.
This capability provides the ultimate "sanity check" for cloud security, identifying assets that have drifted outside governance and ensuring that resources exposed to the public internet are secure, regardless of their internal configuration status.
External Discovery: The Outside-In Cloud Map
ThreatNG’s External Discovery capabilities define the scope of the agentless assessment by mapping the publicly visible cloud footprint. It operates independently of the organization's internal cloud accounts, finding assets that may exist in "Shadow" accounts or forgotten regions.
Cloud Infrastructure Enumeration: ThreatNG recursively scans public IP ranges and DNS records to identify assets hosted on major cloud providers. It identifies "orphaned" cloud resources—such as a developer’s test instance on AWS EC2 or a forgotten load balancer on Google Cloud—that are reachable from the internet but missing from the internal asset inventory.
Seedless Bucket Discovery: Using advanced permutation engines, ThreatNG discovers Exposed Open Cloud Buckets (S3, Azure Blob, Google Storage) without needing access to the cloud console. It generates variations of company names and project codes to identify storage containers that were inadvertently created with "Public" permissions, bringing them into the assessment scope.
External Assessment: Validating Public Exposure
Once cloud assets are discovered, ThreatNG’s Assessment Engine performs an agentless evaluation of their security posture. It analyzes response headers, available services, and the content of the cloud asset to assess risk.
Cloud Misconfiguration Assessment (Technical Resources):
The Exposure: A cloud firewall (Security Group) is misconfigured, leaving a database port open to the world.
ThreatNG Assessment: ThreatNG scans the external IP of the cloud instance. It detects that Port 5432 (PostgreSQL) is accepting connections. It assesses the service banners to identify the version and flags the asset as "Critical Risk" due to unnecessary public exposure. This is done entirely without an agent or cloud API key.
SaaS and Third-Party Risk (Supply Chain):
The Exposure: An organization uses a third-party SaaS service hosted in a public cloud with poor security hygiene.
ThreatNG Assessment: ThreatNG identifies the third-party SaaS connection. It assesses the vendor’s underlying cloud infrastructure (e.g., checking for weak SSL ciphers or expired certificates on their load balancers). This provides an agentless assessment of the supply chain’s cloud exposure that internal tools cannot detect.
Investigation Modules: Deep Dive into Cloud Risk
ThreatNG’s investigation modules allow analysts to interrogate discovered cloud assets to understand the depth of the exposure.
Cloud and SaaS Exposure Investigation:
The Analysis: When ThreatNG discovers a publicly accessible storage bucket, analysts use this module to safely list and inspect the contents (if permitted by the misconfiguration).
The Outcome: The analyst can verify if the bucket contains sensitive PII, backups, or source code. This confirms the impact of the exposure—distinguishing between an empty "test" bucket and a critical data leak—without logging into the AWS or Azure console.
Domain Intelligence and Cloud Pivoting:
The Analysis: An unknown IP address hosted on Azure is sending traffic to the corporate network.
The Outcome: Analysts use Domain Intelligence to pivot on the IP. They can view the asset's history, who registered the associated domains, and whether it is associated with known malicious infrastructure. This helps determine if the "Cloud Asset" is a legitimate shadow resource or a hostile command-and-control server hosted in the cloud.
Continuous Monitoring: Detecting Cloud Drift
Cloud environments are ephemeral; assets are spun up and down instantly. ThreatNG’s Continuous Monitoring ensures the agentless assessment remains up to date.
Infrastructure Drift Detection: If a developer changes a security group rule to allow SSH access (Port 22) on a production cloud server, ThreatNG detects this change in the external profile immediately. It alerts the security team to the Drift, allowing them to close the port before attackers scan it.
Intelligence Repositories: Threat Context
ThreatNG’s Intelligence Repositories enrich the cloud assessment with historical and threat data.
Cloud IP Reputation: The repository tracks the reputation of cloud IP addresses. If a discovered asset is hosted on an IP range known for abuse or previous compromise (e.g., a "bouncy" IP used by spammers), ThreatNG flags the cloud asset as high risk, even if it appears technically secure.
Reporting: The Unmanaged Asset Audit
ThreatNG’s Reporting module translates agentless findings into actionable governance documents.
Cloud Exposure Reports: These reports list all public-facing cloud assets, their provider (AWS/Azure/GCP), and their exposure status. This serves as the "Shadow Cloud" audit, providing leadership visibility into the cloud estate outside the managed "Golden Image" environment.
Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG cooperates with internal cloud security platforms to provide a complete "Inside-Out" and "Outside-In" view of cloud exposure.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) ThreatNG validates the perimeter.
Cooperation: CSPM tools use APIs to check internal configurations (e.g., "Is the S3 bucket policy set to private?"). ThreatNG acts as the external auditor. It scans the bucket from the public internet. If the CSPM reports "Private" but ThreatNG can still access files, ThreatNG provides a "Proof of Exposure" that invalidates the CSPM's finding (often due to complex ACL conflicts). This ensures that "Green" checks in the CSPM actually mean "Secure" in reality.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) ThreatNG finds the unmanaged workloads.
Cooperation: CWPP requires agents to be installed on VMs to protect them. ThreatNG identifies VMs without agents. By detecting "Shadow VMs" spun up by developers outside the deployment pipeline, ThreatNG provides the CWPP team with a list of unmanaged targets that require the protection agent to be installed.
Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) ThreatNG provides the attacker's view.
Cooperation: CNAPP unifies code-to-cloud security. ThreatNG feeds the "Runtime Exposure" data into the CNAPP. While CNAPP scans the code for vulnerabilities, ThreatNG verifies whether the deployed application is reachable. This allows the CNAPP to prioritize fixing vulnerabilities in exposed assets first, optimizing the remediation workflow based on real-world risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is ThreatNG different from a CSPM? CSPM examines the configuration (settings). ThreatNG looks at the manifestation (the reality). CSPM requires credentials; ThreatNG does not.
Can ThreatNG see inside a cloud VM? No. ThreatNG sees what the VM exposes to the world (open ports, services, banners). It does not inspect the file system or registry inside the VM. This is why it works best as a complement to internal agentless scanners that inspect the disk.
Does ThreatNG work with multi-cloud environments? Yes. Because it scans the public internet (IPs and Domains), ThreatNG is agnostic to the provider. It seamlessly discovers and assesses assets across AWS, Azure, GCP, DigitalOcean, and others in a single view.
