Understanding Attack Paths Tested During Cloud Red Teaming As organizations rapidly migrate workloads to the cloud, security strategies must evolve beyond traditional testing methods. Cloud environments introduce new attack surfaces, dynamic identities, shared responsibility models, and complex configurations that adversaries actively exploit. Cloud red teaming is designed to simulate these real-world attack paths, helping organizations understand how a determined attacker could move through their cloud infrastructure and compromise critical assets. Unlike routine vulnerability scans, cloud red teaming focuses on attacker behavior, chaining misconfigurations, identity weaknesses, and control plane flaws to assess true risk exposure. This approach provides leadership and security teams with actionable insights into how well their defenses perform under realistic attack scenarios.
Why Cloud Attack Path Testing Matters Cloud-native attacks rarely rely on a single vulnerability. Instead, attackers exploit a series of weaknesses—often starting with low-risk issues that escalate into full-scale breaches. Cloud red teaming validates whether existing security controls, monitoring, and response capabilities can detect and stop such attack paths before damage occurs. In parallel, aligning red teaming outcomes with asset visibility tools such as an SBOM helps organizations understand how compromised components, libraries, or services could amplify risk across the environment. An accurate SBOM adds context to attack paths by identifying affected software components and dependencies.
Key Attack Paths Tested in Cloud Red Teaming Cloud red teaming exercises typically focus on the most abused and impactful attack vectors observed in real incidents.
1. Identity and Access Abuse Identity is the new perimeter in the cloud. Attackers frequently target weak identity configurations to gain initial access or escalate privileges. Common attack simulations include: ● ● ● ●
Exploiting over-permissive IAM roles and policies Abusing leaked credentials, tokens, or API keys Privilege escalation through misconfigured trust relationships Bypassing multi-factor authentication weaknesses
By mapping these identity risks alongside an SBOM, security teams can quickly identify which applications and services rely on compromised identities, improving remediation prioritization.
2. Cloud Misconfigurations Misconfigurations remain one of the leading causes of cloud breaches. Even mature organizations struggle with visibility across rapidly changing cloud environments. Red teaming tests misconfiguration scenarios such as: ● ● ● ●
Publicly exposed storage buckets or databases Insecure network security groups and firewall rules Improper encryption or logging configurations Excessive permissions granted to services or users
When combined with SBOM insights, misconfiguration findings help teams understand how exposed services connect to vulnerable components or third-party libraries, reducing blind spots across the supply chain.
3. Control Plane Attacks Control plane compromise represents one of the most severe cloud risks. Gaining access to cloud management interfaces can allow attackers to disable security controls, manipulate workloads, or exfiltrate sensitive data at scale. Control plane testing typically includes: ● ● ● ●
Abuse of cloud management APIs Tampering with logging, monitoring, or audit trails Manipulating CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code Creating backdoor users or persistence mechanisms
An updated SBOM supports these scenarios by identifying software dependencies tied to infrastructure automation tools, ensuring compromised components are quickly identified and isolated.
4. Lateral Movement Across Workloads Once inside a cloud environment, attackers aim to move laterally to high-value assets. Cloud red teaming simulates how attackers pivot between workloads, containers, and services. Typical lateral movement tests include: ● ● ● ●
Exploiting trust relationships between workloads Abusing service accounts and metadata services Compromising container orchestration platforms Moving between hybrid or multi-cloud environments
Correlating lateral movement findings with an SBOM enables organizations to track which applications share components, libraries, or runtimes—helping reduce the blast radius of a breach.
Business Value of Cloud Red Teaming Cloud red teaming delivers more than technical findings; it strengthens organizational resilience and decision-making. Key benefits include: ● ● ● ● ●
A realistic view of cloud security posture Validation of detection and response capabilities Improved collaboration between security, cloud, and DevOps teams Prioritized remediation based on real attack impact Stronger alignment with compliance and governance goals
Integrating cloud red teaming outputs with SBOM management further enhances risk visibility, ensuring software supply chain weaknesses are not overlooked during incident response or audits.
Strengthening Cloud Defense with Continuous Testing Threat actors continuously adapt their techniques, making one-time testing insufficient. Regular cloud red teaming helps organizations stay ahead by validating defenses against evolving attack methods. Security leaders increasingly combine: ● Cloud red teaming ● Continuous monitoring ● Incident response simulations ● SBOM-driven asset visibility This layered approach ensures that security investments translate into measurable risk reduction and faster recovery during real incidents. Organizations seeking deeper insights often work with specialized red teaming providers that understand cloud-native attack paths, compliance requirements, and modern software architectures. Leveraging expert-led cloud red teaming can significantly improve detection accuracy, response readiness, and long-term security maturity—especially when paired with a robust SBOM strategy.
Moving Toward Proactive Cloud Security Modern cloud security is no longer about preventing every vulnerability—it’s about understanding how attackers think, move, and succeed. Cloud red teaming offers that attacker’s perspective, revealing gaps that automated tools alone may miss. By continuously testing identity abuse, misconfigurations, control plane risks, and lateral movement, organizations can proactively strengthen defenses before attackers exploit them. When insights from these exercises are enriched with SBOM data, security teams gain a comprehensive view of both infrastructure and software risk. For organizations aiming to improve real-world readiness, reduce breach impact, and align security with business objectives, cloud red teaming supported by SBOM visibility is becoming an essential part of a mature cybersecurity strategy.
