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Cloud units

Unit 2 of Cloud

Cloud Threats and Attack Vectors

Cloud-specific attack surfaces and threat landscape: service hijacking, session hijacking, DoS and DDoS attacks, man-in-the-cloud attacks, cloud-specific vulnerabilities, and privacy issues in cloud-based IT services.

Learning outcomes

  • Identify and classify cloud computing threats and distinguish them from traditional on-premise threats
  • Explain the mechanics of service hijacking, session hijacking, and man-in-the-cloud attacks
  • Analyse DoS and DDoS attack vectors targeting cloud infrastructure
  • Assess privacy risks and vulnerabilities specific to cloud-based IT service delivery

Topics

2.1

Cloud Threat Landscape & Session Hijacking

CSA Top 10 cloud threats, the SSRF-to-IMDS credential theft chain, and IMDSv1 vs IMDSv2.

2.2

Service Hijacking, DoS & Economic Denial of Sustainability

Credential exposure channels, EDoS attacks exploiting cloud elasticity, and mitigation controls.

2.3

Man-in-the-Cloud Attacks & Privacy in the Cloud

Sync token hijacking, data residency jurisdiction, DPDP Act 2023, and multi-tenancy isolation challenges.

2.4

Threat Modelling with STRIDE & MITRE ATT&CK for Cloud

STRIDE threat classification, applying STRIDE to a cloud workload, and the MITRE ATT&CK for Cloud matrix.

2.5

Chapter 2 MCQ Self-Assessment

20 multiple-choice questions on cloud threats, attacks and privacy.

2.6

Insider Threats & Misconfigured Cloud Storage

The anatomy of S3 bucket misconfiguration, multi-layer access control, real breach case studies, and technical controls for insider threat detection and prevention.

2.7

APT Techniques & Lateral Movement in Cloud

How APT groups exploit cloud-native services for initial access, privilege escalation, lateral movement across accounts, and data exfiltration.

2.8

Cloud Supply Chain Security & Third-Party Risk

Risks in container image supply chains, dependency confusion, CI/CD pipeline compromise, and third-party SaaS integration.

2.9

Cloud Threat Intelligence & Indicators of Compromise

Cloud-specific IOC categories, threat intelligence sources, GuardDuty finding types, integration workflows, and CERT-In advisory consumption.