Digital systems no longer require attackers to target their weakest points directly. In some cases, exploiting the most trusted components is sufficient. In cloud computing environments—built on layered, interconnected infrastructures of services and tools—even security mechanisms themselves are no longer outside the threat landscape; in certain scenarios, they have become part of the attack surface.
This shift reflects a new reality in cybersecurity. Attacks are no longer limited to breaking through defensive perimeters; instead, they infiltrate them by leveraging third-party services and open-source components that underpin modern cloud architectures.
Fragility of the Trust Model in Cloud Environments
Recent incidents show that accessing cloud systems does not always require a direct attack. Instead, it can be achieved by exploiting components assumed to be part of the security and management framework.
In March, a cloud infrastructure linked to the European Commission was breached in an incident targeting its digital services. The compromise was not the result of a conventional direct attack, but rather a chain of interconnected tools and services used for cloud administration and security. While technically complex, the incident highlights a deeper structural issue in how trust is established within modern cloud systems.
Rather than a single exploitable vulnerability, the real challenge lies in a tightly interconnected ecosystem of providers, services, and software components. In such an environment, even a minor weakness can become a wide entry point that is difficult to trace or contain.
According to Ashish Rajan, a UK-based cybersecurity expert and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), one of the most common mistakes in cloud environments is granting excessive access privileges to third-party vendors at the start of contracts, without conducting continuous reviews afterward.
He notes that this over-trust becomes a direct vulnerability when any of these vendors is compromised, allowing attackers to leverage their privileges to move laterally across systems. He points, for example, to the breach of the Vercel platform, which was linked to extortion attempts involving a ransom demand of around $2 million.
Security Systems as Part of the Attack Surface
Rajan argues that the issue is not the cloud infrastructure itself, but how environments are configured and managed within organizations. While the “shared responsibility model” theoretically defines clear roles between cloud providers and customers, in practice it leaves a gray zone that is frequently exploited in supply-chain attacks.
He also highlights that misconfigurations remain among the top three causes of cloud breaches. The problem does not end at initial setup but extends throughout the lifecycle of access management, where organizations are often precise in granting permissions initially but lack systematic processes to review or revoke them later.
As a result, legacy access keys and unused service accounts often remain active, turning partial compromises into broader incidents across interconnected systems, especially in the absence of continuous oversight of distributed trust.
Trust-Based Intrusions Rather Than Vulnerability-Based Attacks
The cloud security challenge is not limited to advanced threats or sophisticated exploits. According to threat intelligence research from Wiz, most cloud breaches in 2025 are not driven by novel attack techniques but by fundamental operational mistakes.
Instead of zero-day vulnerabilities or advanced bypass methods, attackers exploit familiar weaknesses such as misconfigurations, weak credential management, poor access control, and inadequate endpoint security.
The data also shows that approximately 53% of pre-breach activity involves reconnaissance and information gathering. During this phase, attackers map internal system structures and analyze relationships between services, identities, and permissions before launching an actual attack. In other words, the breach does not begin at the moment of intrusion, but much earlier, through systemic reconstruction from the outside.
Artificial Intelligence Expands the Attack Surface
While basic operational errors remain the primary entry point for cloud breaches, the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence introduces a new layer of complexity.
According to the State of Cloud Security Report published by Palo Alto Networks experts, the rapid deployment of AI services within organizations is significantly expanding the attack surface, often without a corresponding increase in security controls or governance maturity.
