Top 5 cloud misconfigurations attackers exploit — and how to catch them

Cloud misconfigurations are one of the top causes of data breaches today.

In a fast-moving environment where teams spin up services daily, it's easy to overlook a small setting that opens the door to attackers.

This post highlights the 5 most exploited cloud misconfigurations, how they happen, and how you can catch them early with Tresal.

1. Publicly accessible storage buckets

Whether it's AWS S3, Azure Blob, or Google Cloud Storage, leaving a bucket open to the public is like posting your internal files on the internet — no password required.

Why it happens:

• Developers bypass access settings during testing
• Misunderstanding of bucket policies
• Inheritance from a misconfigured parent project

What to do:

• Use a CSPM tool like Tresal to continuously check for public access
• Apply least privilege policies by default
• Monitor all bucket permissions for changes

2. Over-permissive IAM roles

Giving users or services more access than they need is a recipe for lateral movement and privilege escalation.

Why it happens:

• Teams grant full admin access "just to get it working"
• Lack of visibility into existing roles and permissions
• Forgotten or orphaned users that retain access

What to do:

• Audit IAM roles and remove unused or broad permissions
• Rotate keys and credentials regularly
• Detect and flag overly permissive policies with CSPM scanning

3. Unused access keys and credentials

Access keys, tokens, and passwords that are active but no longer used can be stolen and exploited — especially if they're hardcoded in repositories or not rotated.

Why it happens:

• No rotation policy
• Developers leave the company but their credentials remain
• Automation scripts use static keys stored insecurely

What to do:

• Regularly rotate credentials
• Use CSPM to detect unused or stale keys
• Replace long-term credentials with short-lived tokens or IAM roles

4. Exposed dev or test environments

Developers often deploy test instances with little or no security — thinking no one will find them. But attackers constantly scan for such unprotected services.

Why it happens:

• Subdomains like test.domain.com or staging.domain.com go live
• Temporary environments are never cleaned up
• No WAF, auth, or access control on test APIs

What to do:

• Use ASM to detect new or forgotten public assets
• Restrict access to dev environments behind VPN or auth
• Set expiration policies for temporary environments

5. Insecure default configurations

Cloud providers offer a lot of flexibility — but the defaults aren't always secure. If you don't explicitly lock things down, they might be more open than you expect.

Why it happens:

• Rushed deployments
• Lack of cloud security expertise
• Assumption that "secure by default" applies everywhere

What to do:

• Scan configurations against security benchmarks (CIS, ISO, GDPR)
• Review every new service's default settings
• Use CSPM tools to flag risky defaults across your environments

How Tresal helps

Tresal continuously monitors both:

• Your external attack surface (domains, ports, APIs, etc.)
• Your cloud configuration posture (permissions, access, compliance)

You'll get alerts when:

• Buckets are public
• Roles are too permissive
• Credentials go stale
• Exposed test environments pop up
• Default configs create security gaps

No setup. No manual audits. Just actionable visibility.

Conclusion

Cloud misconfigurations are easy to make — but just as easy to detect if you have the right tools.

Tresal gives you the unified visibility to catch issues before attackers do.

Know what's exposed. Fix it fast.

👉 See it in action