Module 19: Cloud Computing

Module 19: Cloud Computing

Scenario

Cloud computing is an emerging technology that delivers computing services such as online business applications, online data storage, and webmail over the Internet. Cloud implementation enables a distributed workforce, reduces organization expenses, provides data security, etc. As enterprises are increasingly adopting cloud services, cloud systems have emerged as targets for attackers to gain unauthorized access to the valuable data stored in them. Therefore, it is essential to regularly perform pen testing on cloud systems to monitor their security posture.

Security administrators claim that cloud systems are more vulnerable to DoS assaults, because they involves numerous individuals or clients, making DoS assaults potentially very harmful. Because of the high workload on a flooded service, these systems attempt to provide additional computational power (more virtual machines, more service instances) to cope with the workload, and they will eventually fail.

Although cloud systems try to thwart attackers by providing additional computational power, they inadvertently aid attackers by allowing the most significant possible damage to the availability of a service—a process that starts from a single flooding-attack entry point. Thus, attackers need not flood all servers that provide a particular service but merely flood a single, cloud-based address to a service that is unavailable. Thus, adequate security is vital in this context, because cloud-computing services are based on sharing.

As an ethical hacker and penetration tester, you must have sound knowledge of hacking cloud platforms using various tools and techniques. The labs in this module will provide you with real-time experience in exploiting the underlying vulnerabilities in a target cloud platform using various hacking methods and tools. However, hacking the cloud platform may be illegal depending on the organization’s policies and any laws that are in effect. As an ethical or pen tester, you should always acquire proper authorization before performing system hacking.

Objective

The objective of the lab is to perform cloud platform hacking and other tasks that include, but are not limited to:

  • Performing S3 bucket enumeration
  • Exploiting misconfigured S3 buckets
  • Escalating privileges of a target IAM user account by exploiting misconfigurations in a user policy

Overview of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing refers to on-demand delivery of IT capabilities, in which IT infrastructure and applications are provided to subscribers as metered services over a network. Cloud services are classified into three categories, namely infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS), which offer different techniques for developing cloud.

Lab Tasks

Ethical hackers or pen testers use numerous tools and techniques to hack the target cloud platform. Recommended labs that will assist you in learning various cloud platform hacking techniques include:

  1. Perform S3 bucket enumeration using various S3 bucket enumeration tools

    • Enumerate S3 buckets using lazys3
    • Enumerate S3 buckets using S3Scanner

  2. Exploit S3 buckets

    • Exploit open S3 buckets using AWS CLI

  3. Perform privilege escalation to gain higher privileges

    • Escalate IAM user privileges by exploiting misconfigured user policy

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