How To Prevent Breaches With 6 Cloud Identity Best Practices

Read full article here: https://www.andromedasecurity.com/blogs/6-cloud-identity-best-practices-for-breach-prevention/?source=nhimg

Identity is now the primary attack surface in the cloud, with breaches increasingly exploiting compromised credentials and excessive privileges. The August 2024 AWS ransomware extortion attack targeting 230 million entities, is a stark reminder that without continuous identity hygiene, a single compromised account (human or non-human) can lead to large-scale damage.

In cloud environments, identity is the new perimeter. Traditional network defenses no longer suffice, and granular permissions, combined with a surge in non-human identities (NHIs), have made access control a top security priority. For every human identity, there may be 10–40 NHIs, including service accounts, API keys, OAuth tokens, and ephemeral workloads, each requiring strict lifecycle management to prevent privilege creep and orphaned accounts.

To address these challenges, organizations must adopt a maturity-based approach to cloud identity security. The six recommended best practices fall into two core categories:

Pruning – Reduce the Attack Surface

1. Remove Stale and Unauthorized Identities – Audit for discrepancies between HR systems, IDPs, and cloud accounts. Eliminate unauthorized local credentials and keep “break glass” accounts tightly controlled.

2. Remove Unused Identities and Credentials – Delete dormant accounts and unused access keys. Automate discovery and deactivation to minimize exploitation opportunities.

3. Prevent Privilege Escalation – Restrict risky permissions (e.g., AWS iam:PassRole, EC2 profile modification, Azure role assignment writes) that enable lateral movement.

Hardening – Strengthen Identity Defenses

4. Strengthen Authentication – Enforce MFA across all accounts (human and NHI), rotate credentials regularly, and adopt passwordless authentication where possible.

5. Continuously Monitor High-Risk Identities – Flag and track external accounts, vendor integrations, and administrative credentials. Enforce stronger authentication and temporary privilege elevation.

6. Maintain Least-Privilege & Just-in-Time (JIT) Access – Leverage behavioral analytics and usage history to rightsize permissions dynamically. Enable JIT elevation for sensitive operations to limit standing privileges.

Implementation Challenges

Applying least privilege at scale is complex due to the volume of permissions, fast-changing workloads, and the mix of human/NHI identities. Manual processes and siloed tools cannot keep pace, requiring automation, real-time monitoring, and adaptive policy enforcement.

Andromeda Security’s Role

Andromeda’s AI-powered Identity Security Platform delivers automated discovery, risk-based access control, and context-driven JIT approvals. By combining visibility, behavior analytics, and lifecycle automation, it enables enterprises to continuously harden their cloud identity posture and limit breach impact even when an identity is compromised.