Recently, Oracle had to alert its customers that a hacker broke into a computer system and retrieved old client log-in credentials. Oracle staff then had to inform some clients that the hacker had gained access to usernames, passkeys and encrypted passwords. As one of the largest technology companies in the world, it shows that any organization can become a target of a cyberattack so preventative measures must be put in place.

Cloud security isn’t optional — it’s critical to business survival. Organizations must not only invest in cloud technology but also invest in training information technology (IT) teams to secure it properly. Here’s a practical guide to what IT staff need to know and do to better protect cloud environments.

Understanding the Most Common Cloud Threats

Training should start by making IT staff aware of the real, evolving threats:

• Misconfiguration: Poor cloud setup is a top risk, leading to ransomware, DDoS attacks, and data exposure.
• Unsecured APIs: Flawed APIs can leak sensitive data and open doors for unauthorized access.
• Cloud Malware: Phishing remains a major threat — one wrong click can infect entire cloud systems.
• DDoS Attacks: Floods cloud networks, websites, or apps, causing downtime and service disruptions.
• Man-in-the-Cloud Attacks: Exploits synchronization accounts like OneDrive or Dropbox to hijack access.
• Hypervisor Exploits: Although rare, breaches at the cloud infrastructure level can be catastrophic.

Action Step:

Conduct monthly security briefings that walk IT teams through real-world examples of each attack type and how they originate.

The Most Common Cloud Attacks

The methods cybercriminals are using to attack through the cloud are evolving at a rapid rate, so it is important to remain vigilant and address any vulnerabilities in setup and maintenance. Organizations can face cloud attacks due to:

• Misconfiguration: Occurs when individuals or teams neglect security best practices, leading to risks like supply chain attacks, DoS, DDoS, ransomware, and threats targeting SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.
• Unsecured API: Exposes sensitive data and grants unauthorized access. It is a growing risk for organizations using cloud services, with issues like broken authentication, poor asset management, excessive data exposure, injection flaws, and lack of rate limiting in some cases.
• Cloud Malware: One of the most common cloud attacks is one that involves phishing emails that trick users into running malicious software, giving attackers unauthorized access to SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS workloads. A single wrong click can lead to ransomware infecting your cloud-hosted data.
• DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service): Targets your application, website, hypervisor, or network.
• Man-In-The-Cloud: A threat where an attacker gains control of a victim’s machine through synchronization accounts like OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box. The attacker positions themselves between the user and the cloud service, manipulating data.
• Hypervisor: While rare, cloud infrastructure hypervisors are a prime target for attackers. These attacks occur when an attacker gains a foothold on a cloud hypervisor and / or cloud-hosted virtual machine (VM). In a hypercall attack, the attacker impersonates a guest VM through the hypercall interface between the entities within an IaaS deployment, potentially gaining access to virtual machines, data in memory, or other threat avenues.

How to Prevent Cloud Attacks

It is important for organizations to protect themselves against cybercriminals, as the cloud can be extremely vulnerable. Using strong passwords and instilling two-factor authentication (2FA) should be non-negotiable within an organization. If a password is too simple and easy to guess, it will make the entire organization vulnerable to a cyberattack and sensitive information can become compromised. On top of that, there should be enforcement of the frequency of password reuse and password age.

Organizations must also keep cloud systems patched. While public cloud providers can supply virtual machines or databases, it is the responsibility of the organization to keep them fully patched along with installed software. In addition to that, backing up machines, data and databases are vital. Ensure that files are properly backed up and are in a different location, as a secure location protects files from ransomware or other malware altering them after backup.

Additionally, proper permissions management of access to cloud resources, along with end-user external sharing are crucial for preventing data leaks and stopping critical data from inadvertently leaving your organization. Following the concept of least access is more important today than ever before.

Implementing a secured API helps to ensure that developers follow security best practices and that they rely on standard API frameworks designed with security in mind. Monitoring and logging help organizations to stay proactive and detect potential problems that may occur before they can become larger issues.

Another crucial thing that all organizations must invest in is educating their employees. By educating employees about IT security, phishing cloud attacks, QR code scams, and more, they can serve as the first line of defense if they believe suspicious activity is afoot.

As technology advances, so do cybercriminals. It is up to organizations to protect themselves and their employees. Standing by idly while waiting for something to happen is no longer an option. It is time to invest in planning ahead and getting in front of the situation before it can happen.