A typical organization’s environment consists of a myriad of applications and services, each with its own unique set of ongoing vulnerabilities and flaws that could ultimately lead to a data breach. This can make IT security and operations’ job difficult, as different departments and groups within a company may utilize specific software offerings to accomplish their job functions.

Cybercriminals are surprisingly lazy. Hackers are continuously cultivating their methods to achieve maximum impact with minimal effort. The adoption of a Ransomware-as-a-Service model is one example of such an achievement. But perhaps the apical point of cyberattack efficiency was achieved with the invention of the supply chain attack. A supply chain attack is a type of cyberattack where an organization is breached though vulnerabilities in its supply chain.

Leaky cloud services are a major concern these days. As more and more organizations move their data and applications to the cloud, ensuring new forms of collaboration and agility for their workforce, setup errors and misconfigurations (or even the lack of understanding of the shared responsibility model) pose a serious risk for the new, enlarged corporate perimeter. So far, in 2021, I have collected 12 major breaches fueled by cloud misconfigurations, and I wonder how many flew under the radar.