How to Optimize Cloud Vulnerability Management

🔍 From CVEs to Exposure Intelligence -- A Technical Model for Risk-Based Vulnerability Management The traditional CVSS-based approach is no match for today’s attack surfaces. A modern exposure management strategy must integrate telemetry, threat intel, and control-plane signals to defend against adversaries who chain misconfigs, stale privileges, and unpatched services. Here’s a breakdown of key InfoSec risks—and technically grounded remediations: 🔴 Risk #1: CVE overload with no context-aware prioritization 🟢 Remediation: - Implement exploitability filters using threat intelligence feeds (e.g., Exploit-DB, CISA KEV, Mandiant TI). - Use EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) and MITRE ATT&CK mapping for attacker-centric triage. - Weight vulns by asset criticality using tagging (e.g., public-facing, prod, regulated). 🔴 Risk #2: Fragmented visibility across hybrid/cloud environments 🟢 Remediation: - Aggregate telemetry from EDR (e.g., osquery, Sysmon), CSPM tools, and IAM logs. - Build an exposure graph to visualize relationships between identities, misconfigs, and data stores. - Continuously scan for unknown/rogue assets across on-prem and cloud. 🔴 Risk #3: Configuration drift and unmonitored assets 🟢 Remediation: - Use IaC drift detection (e.g., driftctl, AWS Config) to catch unintended changes. - Enforce compliance-as-code using CIS/NIST baselines with automated remediation pipelines. - Align infrastructure with source-of-truth inventories (CMDB, IaC repos). 🔴 Risk #4: Disconnected workflows between security and IT/DevOps 🟢 Remediation: - Shift security left using tools like Trivy, Checkov, or GitHub Actions in CI/CD. - Pipe exposure insights directly into ITSM platforms (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow). - Use policy-as-code (OPA, Rego) to enforce guardrails without manual approvals. 🔴 Risk #5: Alert noise with no correlation to real risk 🟢 Remediation: - Enrich findings with identity posture (e.g., dormant admin accounts), open ports, and data classification. - Use attack path analysis to correlate and score multi-step exposures. - Prioritize remediation based on blast radius and business impact, not just vuln count. 📌 Exposure management isn’t about more alerts—it’s about graph-driven visibility, risk-aligned prioritization, and automation-first remediation. This isn’t just a shift in tooling—it’s a shift in mindset. The future of InfoSec lies in exposure-centric, not alert-centric defense. 📖 Learn more: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gPJtATGu #InfoSec #CyberSecurity #ExposureManagement #SecurityEngineering #ThreatModeling #CloudSecurity #AttackSurfaceReduction #RiskBasedSecurity #DevSecOps #SecurityArchitecture #BlueTeamOps #MITREATTACK

Smart vulnerability prioritization is key for managing security risks effectively. It's not just about high, medium, or low severity - there's more to consider: 1. Asset context: How is the vulnerable asset used? Is it exposed to the internet? Running with high-level privileges? 2. Threat intel: Is there an active exploit out there? Are bad actors targeting this vulnerability? 3. Business impact: How important is this asset to keeping things running? 4. Ease of exploit: How simple is it to take advantage of? Are we talking remote code execution or just service disruption? 5. Existing safeguards: Are there already protections in place? By looking at these factors and others, companies can focus on fixing the truly risky vulnerabilities first. This helps security teams work smarter, not harder, tackling the most pressing issues. Many modern vulnerability management tools are now baking these contextual factors into how they prioritize risks. When shopping for solutions, keep an eye out for those that go beyond basic CVSS scores to give you a more detailed risk picture.

I'd encourage you to never scan your production servers and applications for vulnerabilities, ever again. Before you think my account has been hacked, or I've lost my mind, let me explain. CI/CD, orchestration, automation and IaC (Infrastructure as Code) has ushered in a new era. Using this power, you only have to scan instantiations of production pushes. Here's how this works. [1] Shift to immutable images - you never modify a production server, you repave. [2] Shift to rapid repave - get your developers on a rapid repave schedule of 2 weeks. They may not push code every two weeks, but if they buy into a smoke test every 2 weeks, then... [3] Create automation to fully patch images, scan for vulnerabilities on those images (kick to human if it fails), and then you have clean images that, at the time of publication, are without known vulnerabilities. [4] Repave by pushing instantiations of clean images. [5] Take the approach beyond applications and servers to network, so that your entire infrastructure stack is patched and refreshed every 2 weeks. Note If you follow this, those environments never have to be scanned for vulnerabilities again, as the oldest vulnerability would be 2 weeks old - and most organizations have a policy of 2/4/6 weeks depending on environments and criticality. Note that the Summer 2024 CrowdStrike outage reminded us how important release management is to resiliency, so a ringed approach is advised. Please opine. Tell me I'm delusional, or please offer contrasting advice.

6 Steps to Reducing Your Cloud Cybersecurity Debt 1) Integrate security into the SDLC as early as possible. 2) Monitor your CSP security posture as well as the posture of your deployed assets. Recommend using a CSPM tool here like Wiz, Orca Security, or Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks 3) Restrict access as you move from left to right towards products. Access tends to necessarily be permissive on the left end of development but should become more restrictive as you got to test/qa and then most restrictive as you get to production. 4) Reduce your attack surface. Mitigate commonly exploited misconfigurations and exploitation techniques while monitoring cloud infrastructure for vulns and anomalies. 5) Perform a cyber-threat profile assessment. Understand threats specific to your cloud architecture and the top security risks you face. 6) Pentesting (or better yet, continuous testing) This can help identify complex "toxic combinations" before attackers exploit them, and provide quantitative data to help measure the risk associated with your cloud assets. #cloud #cyber #security (h/t Dark Reading "Reducing Security Debt in the Cloud")

2024 State of Cloud Security Study Key Insights A great morning read from Datadog ‘analyzed security posture data from a sample of thousands of organizations that use AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.’ ↗️ Long-lived credentials -> remain a security risk, with 60% of AWS IAM users having access keys older than one year. Unused credentials are widespread, increasing attack surfaces across all cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP). Recommendation -> Shift to temporary, time-bound credentials & centralized identity management solutions. ↗️ Public access blocks on cloud storage increasing AWS S3 & Azure Blob Storage are increasingly using public access blocks, with S3 seeing 79% of buckets proactively secured. Recommendation -> Enable account-level public access blocks to minimize risks of accidental data exposure. ↗️ IMDSv2 adoption growing AWS EC2 instances enforcing IMDSv2 have grown from 25% to 47%, yet many instances remain vulnerable. Recommendation -> Enforce IMDSv2 across all EC2 instances & use regional settings for secure defaults. ↗️ Managed Kubernetes clusters Many clusters (almost 50% on AWS) expose APIs publicly, with insecure default configurations risking attacks. Recommendation -> Use private networks, enforce audit logs, & limit permissions on Kubernetes worker nodes. ↗️ 3rd-Party integrations pose supply chain risk 10% of third-party IAM roles are overprivileged, creating risks of AWS account takeover. Recommendation ->Limit permissions, enforce External IDs, & remove unused third-party roles. ↗️ Most cloud incidents caused by compromised cloud credentials Cloud incidents are often triggered by compromised credentials, particularly in AWS, Azure, & Entra ID environments. Patterns of Attack + Compromised identities + Escalation via GetFederationToken + Service enumeration + Reselling access + Persistence techniques Microsoft 365 -> Credential stuffing, bypassing MFA, & malicious OAuth apps for email exfiltration. Google Cloud -> Attackers leverage VPNs & proxies for crypto mining and follow common attack patterns. Recommendations -> Implement strong identity controls & monitor API changes that attackers may exploit. ↗️ Many cloud workloads are excessively privileged or run in risky configurations Overprivileged cloud workloads expose organizations to significant risks, including full account compromise & data breaches. Recommendation ->Enforce least privilege principles on all workloads. Use non-default service accounts with tailored permissions in Google Cloud. Avoid running production workloads in AWS Organization management accounts. The study shows improved adoption of secure cloud configurations -> better awareness + enforcement of secure defaults. However, risky credentials & common misconfigurations in cloud infrastructure remain significant entry points for attackers. P.s. use the info to strengthen your org cloud security posture. Full study report in the comment ⬇️ #cloudsecurity #cloudsec #cybersecurity