Cloud Control, Compromised: How Identity Gaps Trigger the Biggest Breaches
In 2024, IBM found that 82 percent of breaches touched data stored in the cloud and cost an average of $5.17 million when public‑cloud assets were hit (secureframe.comibm.com). Almost every one of those incidents started the same way: an attacker slipped through an identity crack. a mis‑scoped role, a neglected key, or an over‑privileged token and owned the control plane before anyone saw an alert.
How the Big Breaches Happened and How to Stop the Next One
1. Capital One, 2019 – “The Role That Knew Too Much”
A former AWS engineer used a Server‑Side Request Forgery on a misconfigured web application firewall to grab the instance‑metadata credentials for an IAM role with read‑heavy access to S3 buckets. The attacker walked out with 100 million credit‑card applications, no malware required.
Architectural gap: one flat role with broad S3 access, no metadata protection.
Fix it: Pin every IAM role to least‑privilege policies, block instance‑metadata unless explicitly needed, and rotate any role used by an internet‑facing service every 24 hours.
2. Uber, 2022 – “MFA Fatigue Meets Hard‑coded Tokens”
Lapsus$ spammed a contractor with push‑MFA prompts until one was approved, then found hard‑coded privileged tokens in a network share and reached the source‑code repo. Internal Slack lit up with “We got owned.”
Architectural gap: push‑only MFA and token reuse across environments.
Fix it: Move human and workload identities to phishing‑resistant MFA, enforce Just‑in‑Time (JIT) access, and set short session lifetimes for OAuth and PAT tokens.
3. Microsoft Azure AD Key Theft, 2023 – “The Forged Ticket to Everywhere”
Storm‑0558 stole a consumer signing key and forged Azure AD tokens, letting them read high‑profile Outlook inboxes. The root: the key sat in the same security boundary as test credentials and wasn’t rotated on schedule.
Architectural gap: single-tier key custody and delayed rotation.
Fix it: Keep signing keys in a dedicated HSM tier, rotate automatically, and require quorum approval for export or use outside the zone. Map every key to an owner and expiry date.
4. Okta, 2023 – “Support Portal Side Door”
Attackers grabbed HAR files from a customer‑support system, replayed session cookies, and jumped into customer tenants. Session tokens lived too long, and third‑party access wasn’t ring‑fenced.
Architectural gap: long‑lived session cookies and vendor over‑reach.
Fix it: Force re‑authentication on privilege escalation, expire session cookies quickly, and segment vendor‑support access through time‑boxed, audited roles.
Six Best Practices That Close the Door
Least‑Privilege IAM & Role Segmentation – Every function, human or machine, should start from zero and add only what it needs.
- Phishing‑Resistant MFA + Conditional Access – Enforce WebAuthn/FIDO2 and deny risky sign‑ins by policy.
- 24×7 Identity Monitoring (CSPM + CIEM) – Alert on privilege creep, inactive keys, and sudden role changes.
- Immutable Infrastructure & Zero‑Trust Segmentation – Rebuild rather than patch; assume every request comes from the internet.
- Automated Key Rotation & Secrets Management – Keys die young; that’s a feature. Use your KMS, not Git, as the source of truth.
- Vendor‑Risk Due Diligence – Third parties get least privilege too, with real‑time token revocation if a breach is suspected.
Why Fixing Identity Is Cheaper Than Cleaning Up
Erasing malware is messy; erasing leaked customer data is impossible. Analysts peg the average clean‑up lag at 277 days, but a hardened identity fabric can shut down a stolen token in minutes. The math is simple: one week spent tightening roles and key rotation costs less than one hour of incident‑response lawyers.