Chapter 1
Engagement Management
Course: Comptia Pentest Pt0 003
Subject: Comptia Pentest Plus
Chapter: Attacks And Exploits
Cloud environments provide scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency but introduce new security challenges. Attackers exploit misconfigurations, weak identity controls, and unprotected metadata services to gain unauthorized access, escalate privileges, or extract sensitive data. Below is a comprehensive breakdown of major cloud security threats, real-world attack cases, tools used, and defense mechanisms.
1. Attack Types
1. Metadata Service Attacks
Overview
Metadata services in cloud environments like AWS EC2, Google Compute Engine (GCE), and Azure VMs store critical instance-related information, such as:
- IAM credentials
- API access tokens
- Network configurations
- Instance metadata
If these services are misconfigured, attackers can extract credentials and escalate privileges.
Real-Life Example
- Capital One Data Breach (2019): A former AWS engineer exploited a misconfigured Web Application Firewall (WAF) to access Capital One’s metadata service, retrieving IAM credentials and stealing sensitive data of over 100 million users.