Performing Cloud Penetration Testing

When to Use

• Assessing the security posture of cloud infrastructure before or after migration from on-premises
• Testing IAM policies, security groups, and network ACLs for overly permissive configurations
• Evaluating the security of serverless architectures (Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Functions)
• Identifying exposed cloud storage (S3 buckets, Azure Blob containers, GCS buckets) containing sensitive data
• Testing the effectiveness of cloud security controls (GuardDuty, Defender for Cloud, Security Command Center)

Do not use without both written authorization from the cloud account owner AND compliance with the cloud provider's penetration testing policy (AWS requires no prior approval for most services; Azure and GCP require notification or approval for certain test types).

Prerequisites

• Written authorization specifying target cloud accounts, regions, and services in scope
• Compliance with cloud provider penetration testing policies (AWS Penetration Testing Policy, Azure Penetration Testing Rules, GCP Acceptable Use Policy)
• Cloud credentials at various privilege levels (read-only, developer, admin) for testing authorization boundaries
• Pacu (AWS), PowerZure (Azure), or GCP-specific exploitation frameworks installed
• ScoutSuite or Prowler for automated cloud security posture assessment
• AWS CLI, Azure CLI, and/or gcloud CLI configured with test credentials