Cloud Penetration Testing
Cloud infrastructure is powerful — and notoriously easy to misconfigure. An overly permissive IAM role or a public S3 bucket is all an attacker needs to access your entire environment. We find these before they do.
What is Cloud Penetration Testing?
Security assessment of your cloud infrastructure — testing AWS, Azure, and GCP environments for misconfigurations, overly permissive IAM policies, exposed storage, and exploitable attack paths.
Cloud environments are elastic, complex, and frequently misconfigured. Overly permissive IAM roles, public storage buckets, and default credentials are behind a significant share of major cloud incidents — and most organisations have at least one of these risks present without knowing it.
At a Glance
- Frameworks
- CIS Cloud Benchmarks, CSA STAR, NIST SP 800-144
- Typical Timeline
- 5–10 days depending on cloud footprint
- Report
- Executive summary + full technical findings
- Retest
- Complimentary, included in every engagement
- NDA
- Signed before any technical discussion
Outcomes that move your security forward
What You Receive
Executive Summary Report
Cloud security risk overview for leadership and DevOps teams
Full Technical Report
All findings with affected resource identifiers, proof-of-concept, and CVSS scores
IAM Review
Detailed analysis of identity and access management policies with privilege escalation paths highlighted
CIS Benchmark Gap Analysis
Your cloud environment measured against CIS Benchmarks for AWS/Azure/GCP with pass/fail per control
Remediation Guide
Cloud-provider-specific fix instructions including CLI commands and console steps
Retest Report
Confirms critical and high findings resolved after remediation
What We Test
IAM policies — overly permissive roles, privilege escalation paths
How We Run This Engagement
Every engagement follows a defined, transparent process — no surprises, no hidden scope changes, and no invoice for work you did not agree to.
Scoping
Document cloud accounts, regions, services in scope, and access levels for testing.
Reconnaissance
Map exposed cloud assets and enumerate IAM permissions.
Configuration Review
Assess IAM policies, network rules, storage permissions, and security settings against CIS Benchmarks.
Exploitation
Attempt to exploit identified misconfigurations to demonstrate real-world impact.
Lateral Movement
Assess attacker movement potential within the cloud environment.
Reporting & Retest
Risk-rated findings with AWS/Azure/GCP-specific remediation guidance, followed by complimentary retest.
Why Work With Vigilant Defenders
Manual Testing. Not Scanner Output.
Automated tools find known signatures. Our certified consultants find the chained attack paths, logic flaws, and context-specific vulnerabilities that no scanner will surface. Every finding we report is manually verified — zero false positives.
Reports Built for Action, Not Filing.
Every finding includes a proof-of-concept, a CVSS risk score, the affected system or endpoint, and step-by-step remediation guidance written for the team that has to fix it. Your developers and your board both get a report they can use.
Confidentiality From Day One.
We sign a formal NDA before any technical discussion begins. Your vulnerabilities, your architecture, and your engagement findings are treated with the same confidentiality as attorney-client communications. We have never disclosed client information.
We Stay Until It's Fixed.
Every engagement includes a complimentary retest once your team has addressed the findings. We verify that the vulnerabilities are genuinely closed — not surface-patched — and issue a formal retest certificate you can share with clients and auditors.
We Test Cloud the Way Cloud Gets Compromised.
Cloud breaches rarely involve sophisticated exploits. They involve misconfigured storage, excessive IAM permissions, and exposed credentials. We focus our testing on the real-world attack paths that have caused the most significant cloud incidents, aligned to CIS Benchmarks for AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about this engagement.
We test Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). We can also assess multi-cloud environments.
Related services
Enterprise Pen Testing
Full-scope testing including your cloud and on-premise infrastructure together.
Learn moreFind Out What's Exposed in Your Cloud Environment
Get a free scoping consultation — no commitment required. We’ll scope the right cloud penetration testing engagement for your environment and send a fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours.