Cloud Penetration Testing
Cloud-specific penetration testing covering IAM misconfigurations, storage exposure, and lateral movement.
Cloud Penetration Testing
Cloud environments introduce a fundamentally different attack surface from traditional networks — one where misconfigured IAM policies, over-permissive roles, exposed storage buckets, and metadata SSRF vulnerabilities can hand an attacker administrative control over your entire cloud estate within minutes. Intelliroot's Cloud Penetration Testing service delivers a rigorous, adversarial assessment of your AWS, Azure, or GCP environment, combining automated misconfiguration detection with manual exploitation of cloud-native attack paths that automated tools consistently miss.
Our cloud security engineers hold deep expertise in the unique attack techniques that cloud environments introduce: IAM privilege escalation via policy attachment, cross-account role abuse, Lambda and Azure Functions exploitation, container escape from managed Kubernetes, S3 bucket chain attacks, and metadata service SSRF leading to credential theft. We simulate the full attack chain from an initial foothold — a stolen access key, a public-facing serverless function, or an SSRF in your web application — through to the point of maximum privilege in your cloud environment, giving you an unambiguous picture of your blast radius.
Why Cloud-Specific Penetration Testing Is Essential
Traditional Pentests Miss Cloud-Native Risks
A network penetration test does not assess IAM policies, S3 bucket permissions, or Lambda function misconfigurations. Cloud environments require cloud-native testing techniques and toolsets. Relying on a traditional pentest to cover cloud risks leaves critical attack paths completely unvalidated.
IAM Is the New Perimeter
In cloud environments, identity is the perimeter. A single over-permissive IAM role or inline policy can allow any compromised compute resource to escalate to full administrative access. IAM privilege escalation paths are subtle, complex, and almost always present in real-world cloud deployments.
Storage Exposure Is Catastrophic and Common
Misconfigured S3 buckets, Azure Blob containers, and GCS buckets have caused some of the largest data breaches in history. Our testing validates not just public access settings but chained access through role permissions, presigned URLs, and cross-account data exfiltration paths.
Serverless and Container Attack Surfaces Are Underappreciated
Lambda functions, Azure Functions, and containerised workloads on EKS / AKS / GKE introduce new attack vectors: environment variable secrets exposure, container escapes, privilege escalation via workload identity, and SSRF to the instance metadata service. These require specialist knowledge to test effectively.
What We Test
Identity & Access Management
- IAM privilege escalation paths (PassRole, AttachPolicy)
- Over-permissive roles, policies, and service accounts
- Cross-account role assumption abuse
- Temporary credential theft and replay (STS / IMDS)
- MFA enforcement gaps on privileged identities
Storage & Data Exposure
- S3 / Blob / GCS public access and ACL misconfigurations
- Presigned URL security and expiry validation
- Sensitive data in object storage (credentials, backups, PII)
- Snapshot and AMI exposure across accounts
- Database and secrets manager access controls
Compute & Serverless
- SSRF to instance metadata service (IMDSv1 abuse on AWS)
- Lambda / Azure Functions environment variable secrets
- Container escape on EKS, AKS, and GKE clusters
- Kubernetes RBAC misconfiguration and privilege escalation
- EC2 / VM user data secrets exposure
Network & Logging
- Security group and NACl misconfiguration review
- VPC peering and Transit Gateway exposure
- CloudTrail / Azure Monitor / Cloud Audit Logs coverage gaps
- Internet-facing management interfaces and jump boxes
- Cross-cloud and hybrid connectivity security
Our Approach
Scoping, Access & Provider Notification
We define the cloud accounts, regions, and services in scope, establish the access level for the engagement (read-only IAM credentials for misconfiguration review, or simulated attacker starting from zero), and manage any required cloud provider penetration testing notification filings on your behalf.
Automated Misconfiguration Baseline
We run cloud-native assessment tooling (Prowler for AWS, ScoutSuite, Checkov) to establish a comprehensive baseline of misconfiguration findings. This surfaces the broad landscape of issues efficiently, allowing manual testing time to focus on the most impactful and exploitable attack paths.
IAM & Privilege Escalation Analysis
Using Principal Mapper (PMapper), custom scripts, and manual policy review, we map every privilege escalation path available to each IAM principal in scope. This phase identifies the routes from a low-privilege compromised identity to full administrative access — the most critical cloud attack surface.
Manual Exploitation of Cloud-Native Attack Paths
Identified attack paths are manually exploited to demonstrate real-world impact — stealing credentials from the metadata service via SSRF, escalating IAM privileges, exfiltrating data from exposed storage, escaping container workloads, and pivoting to additional services and accounts.
Post-Exploitation & Blast Radius Mapping
From each point of privileged access established, we map the full blast radius: what data could be exfiltrated, what services could be disrupted, and what cross-account or cross-cloud access is available. This gives you a realistic understanding of the consequence of a real cloud compromise.
Reporting & Architecture Review
Findings are documented with attack path narratives, tool output evidence, and cloud-provider-specific remediation guidance (Terraform policy examples, AWS SCPs, Azure Policy definitions). A live architecture review session translates findings into lasting structural improvements beyond point-in-time fixes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Deliverables
Executive Summary Report
A risk-focused summary of your cloud security posture, demonstrated attack paths, and business impact of key findings — framed in terms your leadership team and cloud programme sponsors can act on.
Technical Findings Report
Detailed documentation of all findings with attack path narratives, CLI / console evidence, CVSS 3.1 scores, and prioritised remediation guidance specific to your cloud provider and service configuration.
IAM Privilege Escalation Graph
A PMapper-generated or hand-crafted visual graph of all IAM privilege escalation paths identified in your environment — showing which principals can reach full administrative access and via which policy or role chains.
Misconfiguration Inventory (CSV / XLSX)
A complete inventory of all misconfigurations identified across the assessed cloud services, including CIS Benchmark mapping, risk rating, and remediation owner fields — ready for integration into your cloud governance workflow.
Infrastructure-as-Code Remediation Snippets
Where applicable, Terraform, CloudFormation, or Bicep code snippets demonstrating the correct secure configuration for each identified misconfiguration — accelerating remediation for teams managing infrastructure as code.
Free Re-test & Attestation Letter
A complimentary re-test of critical and high findings within 30 days, with a signed attestation letter confirming remediation status — accepted by cloud security auditors and regulatory examiners.
Request a Security Assessment
Tell us about your environment and security objectives. We'll design a bespoke assessment and deliver a detailed proposal within 48 hours.