Every change in your IT environment can create new attack paths: combinations of vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, identities, and permissions that an attacker can chain together to gain access to systems or data. The larger and faster the changes, the greater the chance that temporary blind spots emerge that fall outside the view of existing security measures. The questions below help you understand which changes introduce the most risk and how to proactively limit that risk.<\/p>\n
IT changes that increase the likelihood of a successful attack are typically changes that introduce new entry points, expand existing permissions, or reduce the visibility of your security. Think of cloud migrations, new vendor integrations, changes to account permissions, and the rollout of new applications. Each of these changes shifts the attack surface, often without security controls being adjusted immediately.<\/p>\n
What many organizations underestimate is that an attacker is not looking for one big mistake. An attacker looks at the combination of small weaknesses that together form a working path. A new cloud resource with an overly permissive configuration may not be critical on its own. But combined with an account that has too many privileges and a vendor with direct network access, it suddenly becomes a realistic route to sensitive systems.<\/p>\n
The most high-risk IT changes are:<\/p>\n
The core of the problem is that security is often configured at a specific point in time, while the environment continues to change afterward. A manual pentest<\/a> as a baseline provides insight into the situation at that moment, but the day after the test the environment begins to shift again.<\/p>\n After a cloud migration, new attack paths emerge because cloud resources are configured differently by default than on-premises systems, and because the combination of identities, roles, and permissions in the cloud is far more complex and dynamic. Misconfigurations in cloud storage, overly permissive IAM permissions, and insufficient network segmentation are the most common causes.<\/p>\n During a cloud migration, systems and data are moved to an environment where the rules of the game are fundamentally different. On-premises, you had physical and logical boundaries that were relatively stable. In the cloud, resources are quickly created, permissions easily expanded, and connections effortlessly established \u2014 which also means mistakes are made quickly and not always noticed.<\/p>\n Concrete examples of how attack paths emerge after a migration:<\/p>\n An attacker only needs to find one of these weaknesses to gain an initial foothold. From that starting point, they can then move laterally through the environment, looking for privileges that take them further. That is precisely why cloud migrations should always be accompanied by a thorough security evaluation \u2014 not only at the start but also in the weeks and months that follow.<\/p>\n Hackers know what’s coming<\/p>\n Protect your organisation against tomorrow’s threats, not just today’s. From pentests to 24\/7 monitoring. Q-Cyber adapts to what your organisation needs.<\/p>\n 250+<\/p>\n Satisfied clients<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n 25+<\/p>\n Years of experience<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n 3000+<\/p>\n Systems secured<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n New vendor integrations are a security risk because they grant an external party access to your systems, networks, or data, while you have limited control over the security posture of that party. An attacker who compromises the vendor automatically gains a path into your environment.<\/p>\n This type of attack, also known as a supply chain attack, is one of the most effective methods for attackers. Instead of directly attacking a well-secured organisation, they target a smaller or less well-secured vendor with access to that organisation. The connection between vendor and client thus becomes the weakest link in the chain.<\/p>\n What makes this extra dangerous is that the access vendors receive often extends further than strictly necessary. Think of:<\/p>\n For Managed Service Providers, this risk is especially acute. An MSP typically manages the IT environments of multiple clients simultaneously, which means that compromising one MSP can directly provide access to all those client environments. This makes MSPs an attractive target for attackers who want to cause maximum damage with a single breach. More about how these types of scenarios are tested in practice can be found on the page about red teaming<\/a>.<\/p>\n Attackers can exploit a new attack path within days or even hours, depending on the visibility of the vulnerability and the motivation of the attacker. Publicly visible misconfigurations, such as a publicly accessible cloud resource, are often discovered by attackers’ automated scanners within 24 hours.<\/p>\n This is precisely why the traditional approach of one pentest per year is so problematic. An annual pentest is a snapshot: it shows what the security looks like on the day of the test. But the day after the test, the environment begins to change again. Applications are updated, accounts are added, permissions are adjusted, new cloud resources are created. Every change can introduce a new attack path that goes undetected for months until the next test.<\/p>\n Cybercriminals work 365 days a year. They actively track new vulnerabilities, continuously scan the internet for misconfigurations, and adapt their techniques as soon as new opportunities arise. An organisation that only has insight into its attack surface on the day of the test is effectively blind to new risks for the remaining 364 days.<\/p>\n The speed at which an attack path can be exploited depends on:<\/p>\n You detect new attack paths by continuously monitoring your environment for changes that affect the attack surface, and by regularly testing whether those changes have created new attack opportunities. This requires a combination of technical monitoring, periodic manual tests, and a clear overview of who has access to what.<\/p>\n The first step is visibility. You cannot defend what you cannot see. That means you need an up-to-date picture of your IT environment: which systems are running, which accounts exist, what permissions those accounts have, and which connections exist with external parties. For many organisations, this overview is already a challenge, especially when the environment is growing quickly or changing regularly.<\/p>\n Practical measures to detect new attack paths early:<\/p>\n The difference between a vulnerability scan and a real attack path analysis is crucial here. An automated scan finds individual vulnerabilities. But an attacker combines those vulnerabilities with misconfigurations, identities, and permissions into a working path. Only by testing the way a real attacker tests do you gain insight into the actual risks. More background on how this type of research is conducted can be found on the page about cyber research<\/a>.<\/p>\n Continuous insight also begins with a solid understanding of compliance and policy around access management and change management. A solid compliance and policy framework<\/a> helps you to structurally factor in security implications when making IT decisions.<\/p>\n We help organisations detect new attack paths before attackers do, by combining what an automated scan cannot: thinking like a real attacker. Our approach is concrete and pragmatic:<\/p>\n Whether you have just completed a cloud migration, connected new vendors, or simply want to know whether your current security can withstand the way attackers operate today: get in touch<\/a> and we will look together at the right first step. More about our approach can be found on the page about Continuous-Q\u00ae<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hackers know what’s coming<\/p>\n Protect your organisation against tomorrow’s threats, not just today’s. From pentests to 24\/7 monitoring. Q-Cyber adapts to what your organisation needs.<\/p>\n 250+<\/p>\n Satisfied clients<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n 25+<\/p>\n Years of experience<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n 3000+<\/p>\n Systems secured<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every IT change can create new attack paths. Discover which changes pose the greatest risk and how to proactively mitigate them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow does an attack path emerge after a cloud migration?<\/h2>\n
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Q-Cyber does too.<\/h3>\n
\n Get in touch<\/a>\n <\/div>\nWhy are new vendor integrations a security risk?<\/h2>\n
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How quickly can attackers exploit a new attack path?<\/h2>\n
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How do you detect new attack paths before attackers do?<\/h2>\n
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How Q-Cyber helps map new attack paths<\/h2>\n
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Q-Cyber does too.<\/h3>\n
\n Get in touch<\/a>\n <\/div>\n