What Is Cloud Infrastructure Security?
Cloud infrastructure security is the practice of protecting foundational cloud components (such as compute, storage, databases, networks, and identity controls) against unauthorized access, misconfigurations, and data exposure. Effective cloud infrastructure security combines identity and access management, encryption, network segmentation, vulnerability management, monitoring, and automated configuration checks.
The shared responsibility model:
Cloud security duties are split between the cloud provider and the customer:
- Provider responsibility: Securing the underlying physical data centers, hardware, networking, and hypervisors.
- Customer responsibility: Configuring security controls, managing user access, and protecting data.
Key components:
- Identity and access management (IAM): Uses multi-factor authentication (MFA) and role-based access control (RBAC) to restrict resource access.
- Cloud network security: Employs virtual private clouds, firewalls, and network segmentation to block unauthorized traffic.
- Data protection and encryption: Encrypts sensitive information both at rest and in transit.
- Compute and workload security: Protects virtual machines, containers, Kubernetes clusters, and serverless workloads through hardening, vulnerability scanning, patching, and runtime monitoring.
- Application dependency mapping: Maps relationships between applications, workloads, databases, APIs, cloud services, and network connections to support segmentation, impact analysis, and risk prioritization.
Why Is Cloud Infrastructure Security Important?
Protecting Cloud Workloads and Sensitive Data
Cloud workloads can process or store sensitive information such as:
- Credentials
- Customer records
- Intellectual property
Security measures such as encryption, workload isolation, vulnerability management, and secrets management help protect this data from exposure or unauthorized modification. These controls must cover data at rest and in transit, as well as the compute resources that access it. Continuous monitoring can also identify vulnerable software, exposed storage, or unexpected workload behavior before these issues lead to a larger compromise.
Maintaining Visibility Across Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments
Organizations may run resources across several cloud providers alongside private data centers. Each environment can use different:
- Identity systems
- Network controls
- Logs
- Configuration models
This fragmentation makes it harder to maintain a consistent view of assets, risks, and security events. Centralized inventory, logging, posture management, and policy enforcement help security teams identify resources and compare their configurations against expected standards. This visibility also makes it easier to detect unmanaged assets, excessive permissions, and configuration drift across environments.
Related content: Read our guide to hybrid cloud solutions.
Preventing Unauthorized Access and Lateral Movement
Cloud attacks often begin with compromised credentials, exposed services, or overly broad permissions. Various controls can limit what an attacker can access after an initial compromise, including:
- Strong authentication
- Least-privilege access
- Network segmentation
- Tightly scoped service identities
These controls also reduce lateral movement between workloads and services. Monitoring authentication events, API activity, and network traffic can reveal unusual access patterns, while segmentation and access policies can prevent one compromised resource from providing unrestricted access to the rest of the environment.
Common Cloud Infrastructure Security Risks
Cloud Misconfigurations
Misconfigurations include:
- Overly permissive firewall rules
- Disabled logging
- Public endpoints
- Weak encryption settings
- Incorrectly configured security groups
They are common in dynamic environments where resources are frequently created and modified through consoles, APIs, and infrastructure as code. A single configuration error can expose a workload or data store directly to the internet. Automated posture checks, secure configuration baselines, and policy-as-code controls can detect violations before deployment. Continuous monitoring is also important because previously secure resources can become exposed through later changes or configuration drift.
Excessive IAM Permissions
Users, applications, and service accounts often receive more permissions than they need. Elements that increase the potential impact of a compromised identity include:
- Broad roles
- Wildcard permissions
- Unused privileges
Attackers can use these permissions to access data, create resources, modify security controls, or escalate privileges. Organizations should apply least privilege and grant access only to required resources and actions. Regular entitlement reviews can identify unused permissions, while temporary and just-in-time access can reduce persistent administrative privileges. Monitoring IAM changes also helps detect unexpected privilege escalation.
Exposed Cloud Storage and Databases
Data services can become publicly accessible because of incorrect access policies or network settings. Examples include:
- Storage buckets
- Databases
- Snapshots
Exposure can result in sensitive information being downloaded, modified, or deleted without authorization. Organizations should block public access by default and allow connections only from approved identities, networks, or services. Encryption protects stored and transmitted data, while access logging provides evidence of who accessed it. Automated scanning can continuously identify publicly exposed or incorrectly configured data stores.
Compromised Credentials
Attackers can obtain passwords, API keys, access tokens, and other credentials through:
- Phishing
- Malware
- Source-code leaks
- Exposed configuration files
- Compromised developer systems
Cloud credentials are particularly valuable because they may provide direct API access without requiring an attacker to compromise a server first. Multi-factor authentication reduces the risk associated with stolen passwords. Organizations should also use short-lived credentials, rotate secrets, and store them in dedicated secrets-management systems instead of source code. Monitoring authentication and API activity can identify suspicious logins, unusual locations, or unexpected resource access.
Unsecured APIs and Management Interfaces
Cloud APIs and management interfaces provide access to infrastructure and are frequently used by administrators and automation tools. These elements can allow attackers to access or modify cloud resources:
- Weak authentication
- Exposed administrative endpoints
- Missing authorization checks
- Insecure API configurations
Administrative interfaces should be restricted to trusted identities and, where practical, approved networks. APIs should enforce strong authentication and granular authorization for every request. Rate limiting, request validation, audit logging, and monitoring can provide additional protection against abuse and unauthorized administrative activity.
Vulnerable Virtual Machines and Containers
Virtual machines and containers can contain vulnerabilities in:
- Operating systems
- Packages
- Libraries
- Runtimes
- Application components
Attackers may exploit these weaknesses to execute code, steal data, compromise credentials, or use one workload as an entry point to other cloud resources. Organizations should scan machine and container images before deployment and continuously identify vulnerabilities in running workloads. Hardened base images, timely patching, minimal container images, and restricted runtime privileges reduce the attack surface. Runtime monitoring can help detect exploitation that preventive controls miss.
Shadow Cloud Resources
Employees and development teams can create cloud accounts, services, workloads, or software-as-a-service integrations outside approved processes. These resources may not follow organizational requirements for:
- Logging
- Encryption
- Identity management
- Patching
- Network security
Shadow resources are difficult to protect because security teams may not know they exist. Asset discovery and centralized cloud governance can identify unmanaged resources across accounts and providers. Organizations can then assign ownership, apply standard controls, or remove resources that are unnecessary or cannot be secured.
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Tips from the Expert
Model identity dependencies, not just network dependencies:
Modern cloud applications often communicate through IAM roles, workload identities, queues, object stores, and managed APIs without a traditional network connection. Add identity-to-resource relationships to dependency maps to expose privilege-based attack paths that network maps miss.Prioritize toxic combinations rather than isolated findings:
A medium-severity vulnerability can become critical when the workload is internet-facing, holds a privileged identity, and connects to sensitive data. Correlate vulnerability, exposure, privilege, data sensitivity, and dependency information before deciding remediation priority.Treat the management plane as a separate attack surface:
Cloud control-plane APIs can let an attacker create credentials, alter logging, modify security groups, or deploy new workloads without traversing normal application paths. Map and monitor management-plane relationships separately from application traffic.Build segmentation from observed dependencies, then challenge them:
Don’t automatically convert every observed connection into an allow rule. First determine whether the communication represents a genuine application dependency, temporary administrative activity, legacy behavior, or attacker-accessible functionality.Put expiration dates on exceptions:
Temporary firewall openings, elevated roles, public endpoints, and policy exceptions have a habit of becoming permanent. Attach an owner, justification, creation date, and automatic expiration to every exception so technical debt cannot silently accumulate.
How Cloud Infrastructure Security Works: The Cloud Shared Responsibility Model
Cloud infrastructure security follows a shared responsibility model. The cloud provider protects the underlying infrastructure used to deliver cloud services, while the customer protects the workloads, data, identities, and configurations they deploy in the cloud. The exact boundary depends on whether the organization uses infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or software as a service (SaaS).
Cloud providers generally secure:
- Physical data centers
- Networking equipment
- Storage hardware
- Servers
- The virtualization layer
They are also responsible for maintaining the availability and security of the managed cloud platform. Customers do not directly manage these underlying components, but they still need to understand the provider’s security controls and available configuration options.
Customer responsibilities commonly include:
- Identity and access management
- Data protection
- Network configuration
- Operating system security
- Application security
- Secrets
- Resource configuration
For example, a provider may secure the infrastructure running a cloud storage service, but the customer must configure access policies correctly and prevent sensitive objects from becoming publicly accessible.
The division changes as services become more managed. With IaaS, customers typically manage operating systems, applications, and much of the network configuration. PaaS transfers more responsibility for operating systems and runtime components to the provider. SaaS places most infrastructure and application management with the provider, while customers remain responsible for areas such as user access, data handling, and tenant-specific security settings.
Key Components of Cloud Infrastructure Security
1. Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM controls which users, services, and workloads can access cloud resources and what actions they can perform. It includes authentication, authorization, roles, policies, service identities, and privileged access management.
Organizations should enforce least privilege, multi-factor authentication, and short-lived credentials where possible. Regular access reviews can remove unused permissions and accounts. Monitoring IAM activity also helps identify suspicious logins, privilege escalation, and unexpected changes to access policies.
2. Cloud Network Security
Cloud network security controls traffic between workloads, cloud services, users, and external networks. Common controls include virtual networks, subnets, security groups, firewalls, private endpoints, network access control lists, and web application firewalls.
Network segmentation limits communication to required paths and reduces lateral movement after a compromise. Organizations should also monitor network flows and DNS activity for unusual connections. Public exposure should be minimized by placing internal services behind private endpoints or restricted network boundaries.
3. Data Protection and Encryption
Data protection controls secure information while it is stored, transmitted, and processed. Encryption at rest protects data in storage systems, databases, snapshots, and backups, while encryption in transit protects information moving between users, workloads, and cloud services.
Encryption depends on effective key management. Organizations should control access to encryption keys, rotate them when required, and monitor their use. Data classification, access policies, backup controls, and data loss prevention can provide additional protection for sensitive information.
4. Compute and Workload Security
Compute security protects virtual machines, containers, Kubernetes clusters, serverless functions, and other workloads. Controls need to address vulnerabilities, insecure configurations, excessive runtime privileges, malicious processes, and compromised workload identities.
Teams can reduce risk by using hardened images, scanning software before deployment, applying patches, and removing unnecessary packages and services. Runtime security adds another layer by detecting unexpected processes, file changes, network connections, or container behavior after deployment.
5. Application Dependency Mapping
Application dependency mapping identifies the relationships between applications, workloads, databases, APIs, cloud services, and network connections. It provides context that individual asset inventories cannot show, such as which database supports an application or which workloads communicate with an internet-facing service.
This context helps security teams understand how a compromise could spread through connected resources. Dependency maps can support network segmentation, incident investigation, and risk prioritization by showing which vulnerable assets support critical services. They are especially useful in dynamic cloud environments where application relationships change frequently.
Cloud Infrastructure Security Best Practices
Here are some of the ways that organizations can better secure their cloud infrastructure.
1. Maintain a Continuously Updated Inventory of Cloud Assets
Maintain an inventory of virtual machines, containers, databases, storage, network components, serverless functions, and managed services across every cloud account and region. Include relevant metadata such as owners, configurations, exposure, and application associations.
Automated discovery is more reliable than manually maintained inventories because cloud resources can appear or disappear quickly. Security teams can use this inventory to identify unsupported systems, exposed services, configuration problems, and resources that no longer have a valid business purpose.
Key actions:
- Discover assets automatically across all accounts and regions.
- Record ownership, configuration, exposure, and application context.
- Remove or remediate unsupported and unnecessary resources.
2. Map Application Dependencies Before Making Infrastructure Changes
Infrastructure changes can affect services beyond the resource being modified. Dependency mapping shows which applications, workloads, databases, APIs, and network paths rely on each component.
Teams should review these dependencies before changing firewall rules, network segments, workloads, or access policies. This reduces the risk of breaking legitimate communication and helps distinguish necessary connections from unnecessary ones. Accurate maps also make it safer to implement segmentation and other restrictive controls.
Key actions:
- Identify upstream and downstream dependencies before changes.
- Validate required network and service connections.
- Use dependency maps to plan segmentation safely.
3. Monitor East-West and North-South Traffic
North-south traffic moves between cloud resources and external networks, while east-west traffic moves between internal workloads and services. Monitoring both provides visibility into external attacks as well as activity occurring after an attacker gains access.
Traffic analysis can identify unexpected destinations, unusual communication patterns, scanning, command-and-control connections, and lateral movement. Teams should establish normal communication patterns for critical applications so deviations can be investigated more efficiently.
Key actions:
- Monitor both external and internal communication paths.
- Establish normal traffic patterns for critical services.
- Investigate unusual destinations and lateral movement.
4. Identify Shadow IT and Unmanaged Assets
Cloud resources created outside approved processes may not have required security controls. Examples include unmanaged cloud accounts, test virtual machines, forgotten databases, developer-created services, and resources deployed in unmonitored regions.
Continuous asset discovery can identify infrastructure that is missing from central inventories or security tooling. Once discovered, teams should determine ownership and business purpose, assess exposure and configuration, and either bring the resource under standard controls or decommission it.
Key actions:
- Continuously discover resources outside approved inventories.
- Assign owners and validate business purpose.
- Bring unmanaged assets under policy or decommission them.
Related content: Read our article about IT asset discovery.
5. Minimize Unnecessary Network Connections
Every permitted network connection creates another path that an attacker could potentially use. Security teams should identify which workloads actually need to communicate and remove firewall rules, routes, security group permissions, and public endpoints that are no longer required.
Access should be limited by source, destination, port, protocol, and application requirements where possible. Regularly reviewing observed traffic against configured rules can reveal permissions that exist but are never used, allowing teams to reduce the network attack surface without disrupting applications.
Key actions:
- Remove unused firewall rules and public endpoints.
- Restrict access by source, destination, port, and protocol.
- Compare configured permissions with observed traffic.
6. Use Microsegmentation to Limit Lateral Movement
Microsegmentation applies granular communication policies between workloads rather than relying only on broad network boundaries. For example, an application server can be permitted to communicate with a specific database while being blocked from unrelated workloads in the same cloud network.
Policies should reflect actual application dependencies and follow a default-deny approach where practical. If an attacker compromises one workload, microsegmentation restricts the systems they can reach next. This containment can reduce the scope of a breach and provide security teams with more time to detect and respond to malicious activity.
Key actions:
- Define granular workload-to-workload communication policies.
- Apply default-deny rules where practical.
- Base segmentation policies on verified application dependencies.
Securing Cloud Infrastructure with Faddom
Faddom is an agentless, non-intrusive platform that delivers real-time, complete visibility into network connections and dependencies across on-premises servers and cloud instances. It helps security teams close the visibility gaps that lead to breaches, including unmapped ports, misconfigured firewall and access policies, missing segmentation, and shadow IT. Faddom’s scoring mechanism turns complex network activity into actionable insight by prioritizing risks according to severity, so teams can address the most critical exposures first, and it maps an entire hybrid environment in under 60 minutes.
Key capabilities of Faddom:
- Micro-segmentation planning: Provides the dependency map needed to define and enforce granular workload-to-workload policies without breaking legitimate application communication.
- Lateral movement detection: Surfaces internal east-west activity that indicates an attacker moving between workloads after an initial compromise.
- External north-south traffic visibility: Shows which resources communicate with external networks, making unexpected exposure easier to identify.
- Shadow IT discovery: Documents untracked assets, undocumented applications, and unauthorized tools that fall outside standard security controls.
- CVE detection: Identifies vulnerable components across the mapped environment so remediation can be prioritized in context.
- Traffic anomaly detection with Lighthouse AI: Uses a multi-layered deep learning engine that continuously learns the environment’s normal behavior and flags abnormalities such as DoS attacks, MITM attacks, DNS spoofing, port scanning, and data exfiltration, while minimizing alert noise.
- User access detection: Reveals who is connecting to specific services and servers, including the use of insecure protocols.
- SSL certificate management: Tracks certificates in use across the environment, including expiration dates.