Cloud Jacking Attack
Cloud jacking is a type of cyberattack where a malicious actor gains unauthorized access to a victim's cloud environment, account, or services. Once inside, the attacker can hijack computing resources, steal sensitive data, or launch further attacks.
This poses a significant threat because it enables attackers to exploit the victim's legitimate access and resources, often making their malicious activities difficult to detect. It's not a single type of attack, but rather a category of attacks that follow a similar pattern of gaining initial access and then using it for malicious purposes.
How It Works
The core of a cloud jacking attack involves a threat actor gaining access to a cloud environment, which can happen through several methods. The most common attack vectors include:
Credential Theft: This is the most common method of identity theft. Attackers may steal login information through phishing emails, social engineering, or by purchasing credentials from data breaches on the dark web.
Misconfigurations: Organizations may unknowingly leave security gaps in their cloud setups, such as open ports, weak access controls, or unpatched vulnerabilities. Attackers can find and exploit these misconfigurations to bypass security measures.
Malware: Malicious software can be used to infect an endpoint device and steal cloud-related credentials or API keys.
Once access is gained, the attacker can then perform a variety of malicious activities.
Impact & Malicious Activities
The consequences of a cloud jacking attack can be severe, impacting an organization's finances, reputation, and operations. Once an attacker has control of the cloud environment, they can:
Cryptojacking: This is one of the most common outcomes. Attackers utilize the victim's hijacked cloud resources, including virtual machines and processing power, to mine cryptocurrency. This can lead to massively inflated cloud bills for the victim, who is paying for the attacker's activities.
Data Exfiltration: Attackers can steal sensitive data, including customer information, intellectual property, or financial records.
Service Disruption: The attacker can shut down, reconfigure, or destroy cloud resources, causing a denial of service (DoS) or complete operational downtime for the victim's business.
Further Attacks: The hijacked cloud environment can serve as a launchpad for additional attacks, including sending spam emails, hosting malicious websites, or targeting other organizations.
ThreatNG can help an organization combat a cloud jacking attack by providing a comprehensive, outside-in view of their external attack surface, which helps identify and mitigate the attack vectors that adversaries would use to gain initial access to a cloud environment.
External Discovery
ThreatNG performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery to map an organization's digital footprint. This process is crucial for identifying internet-facing assets that could serve as entry points for a cloud jacking attack. ThreatNG identifies the following assets:
Cloud and SaaS Exposure: ThreatNG identifies both sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services and SaaS solutions that an organization utilizes, as well as cloud service impersonations and open, exposed cloud buckets across major platforms, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Code Repository Exposure: The solution identifies public code repositories and examines their content for sensitive data, including exposed API keys, cloud credentials (e.g., AWS Access Key ID), and configuration files.
Subdomains and IPs: ThreatNG identifies and analyzes an organization's subdomains, DNS records, and IP addresses to find potential entry points, including development environments or exposed APIs.
External Assessment
ThreatNG's external assessments provide a detailed security rating by analyzing a wide range of factors, which directly helps in anticipating and preventing a cloud jacking attack. These assessments include:
Cloud and SaaS Exposure: This score rates an organization's security posture concerning its cloud services and SaaS applications. For example, it would highlight a misconfigured AWS S3 bucket that is publicly accessible, which could be an entry point for an attacker to access and hijack cloud resources.
Data Leak Susceptibility: This score is derived from external attack surface intelligence and digital risk intelligence, factoring in Cloud and SaaS Exposure, Dark Web Presence (e.g., compromised credentials), and Domain Intelligence. An example would be if compromised cloud credentials for an employee's account were found on the dark web, which would raise the data leak susceptibility score and indicate a potential risk for cloud jacking.
Cyber Risk Exposure: This score considers sensitive data exposed in code repositories and compromised credentials on the dark web, both of which are common initial access vectors for cloud jacking. For instance, if an API key is exposed in a public GitHub repository, it would be factored into this score, flagging a critical vulnerability.
Non-Human Identity (NHI) Exposure: NHIs, such as API keys and service accounts, are a significant attack vector. This score identifies and evaluates the susceptibility of these identities by looking for compromised NHIs and exposed secrets in code repositories and mobile apps. An example would be if an exposed API in a mobile app had a non-human identity-specific email, which would be found and rated as a risk.
Reporting & Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG provides various reporting capabilities, including executive, technical, and prioritized reports. This helps organizations quickly understand and address risks related to cloud jacking. The reporting includes a prioritized list of findings (High, Medium, Low) and recommendations for remediation. For example, a report might prioritize an exposed cloud bucket as a "High" risk and recommend restricting public access to it.
ThreatNG's continuous monitoring of an organization's external attack surface and digital risks ensures that new vulnerabilities and changes to the cloud environment are detected and reported in real-time. This continuous feedback loop is vital for an organization's security posture.
Investigation Modules
ThreatNG's investigation modules provide detailed insights into specific risks and are essential for proactive defense against cloud jacking.
Cloud and SaaS Exposure: This module identifies both sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services and SaaS solutions used by an organization. For instance, if an employee uses a personal, unsanctioned cloud storage service for company data, ThreatNG would detect this and flag it as a risk, preventing potential unauthorized access.
Sensitive Code Exposure: ThreatNG scans public code repositories to find exposed credentials and configuration files. For example, suppose a developer accidentally commits a file containing a plaintext AWS API key. In that case, ThreatNG's Sensitive Code Exposure module will find this, allowing the organization to rotate the key before it is used in a cloud jacking attack.
Dark Web Presence: This module monitors for compromised credentials and mentions of the organization on the dark web. An example is a data dump containing email addresses and passwords for a company's cloud portal, which an attacker could use to gain access. ThreatNG would identify this, enabling the organization to force password resets and implement multi-factor authentication for affected users.
Domain Intelligence: This module analyzes DNS records, domain permutations, and email security settings to provide comprehensive insights. For example, an attacker might register a domain name similar to a company's legitimate one (e.g.,
company-support.cominstead ofcompany.com) to conduct a phishing campaign to steal cloud credentials. ThreatNG's Domain Intelligence, specifically its Domain Name Permutations feature, would detect this malicious domain, alerting the company to a potential phishing attack
Intelligence Repositories & Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG's intelligence repositories, branded as DarCache, are continuously updated with threat data.
DarCache Rupture (Compromised Credentials): This repository provides information on compromised credentials, which are a primary vector for cloud jacking attacks.
DarCache Vulnerability: This includes a comprehensive database of known vulnerabilities sourced from NVD, EPSS, and KEV, as well as links to verified Proof-of-Concept exploits. This helps an organization to prioritize patching vulnerabilities in its cloud services that are most likely to be exploited.
Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG can work with other cybersecurity solutions to create a more robust defense against cloud jacking.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Solutions: ThreatNG's continuous monitoring and external assessment data can be fed into a SIEM system to provide a comprehensive view of both external risks and internal activity. This would allow an organization to correlate an alert from ThreatNG about an exposed cloud bucket with internal logs showing unauthorized access attempts, providing a more complete picture of a potential attack.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Tools: While ThreatNG focuses on external exposures, a CSPM tool handles internal misconfigurations and security settings within the cloud environment itself. The external findings from ThreatNG, such as an exposed port on a cloud instance, could inform the CSPM tool to perform a deeper, internal scan for related misconfigurations, providing a layered defense.
Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Platforms: A SOAR platform could use the high-priority alerts from ThreatNG (e.g., a critical finding of compromised credentials) to automatically initiate a response workflow, such as isolating the affected cloud account, notifying the IT security team, and forcing a password reset for the compromised user. This automates the remediation process, reducing the time an attacker has to act.
