Attack Vectors

Abstract

The first step in establishing a secure cloud environment is understanding the threats it’s likely to encounter. The attack vectors that your environment will be subjected to will form the to-do list of the areas you need to secure first and foremost. This can seem like a daunting task, even for those who are well versed in the subject matter or particularly for those who are well versed in the immensity of the space. You need to avoid analysis paralysis, getting caught in a loop of trying to address everything at once. We’ll come back to that later in the book, but for now, the best advice we can give you is to look at the cybersecurity frameworks that exist; many intelligent people have thought about the attack surface and identified the attack vectors, so you don’t have to. Treat these as toolkits, guidelines, and, in some cases, gospel in understanding cloud attack vectors.