What Is a Cloud Penetration Test?
A cloud penetration test simulates real-world attack scenarios against your cloud environment to uncover weaknesses, misconfigurations, and blind spots before attackers do.
This goes far beyond a basic vulnerability scan. It’s conducted by ethical hackers who think like real-world adversaries. For businesses operating in regulated sectors or managing sensitive customer data, this is no longer optional.
Frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and NIS2 all require it.
If you store or process critical data in the cloud, you need independent assessments of your security. And that’s where many businesses fail by assuming their cloud setup is secure by default.
Cloud security is a shared responsibility. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken and testing is the only way to truly understand your exposure.
Why Cloud Penetration Testing Is Essential in 2025
Cloud adoption is rising and so are cloud attacks.
Today’s attackers don’t always enter through the front door. They scan the internet for open S3 buckets, forgotten services, unused ports, and exposed API keys sometimes left on GitHub. Once inside, misconfigurations often allow lateral movement, privilege escalation, or full data access.
According to IBM’s 2024 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index:
- 80%+ of cloud breaches stem from cloud misconfigurations
- The average cost of a cloud-related breach exceeds $4.5 million
- 59% of businesses lack visibility into third-party cloud access
These are not minor issues they’re potential business-ending events.
Cloud penetration testing helps reduce these risks by exposing:
- Weak identity controls (e.g., unused admin accounts, no MFA)
- Poor segmentation between environments
- Insecure functions, containers, or serverless endpoints
- Over-permissive APIs or exposed secrets
- Misconfigured cloud services (S3, RDS, IAM, EC2, etc.)
These issues often remain hidden until an incident occurs. Testing helps you catch them first.
What’s Included in a Wyrdex Cloud Penetration Test?
At Wyrdex, we go beyond scanning and reporting. Our cloud penetration tests are tailored to your cloud platform whether AWS, Azure, GCP, or hybrid.
Here’s what we test:
1. Identity and Access Management (IAM)
We evaluate how your environment handles users, groups, roles, and permissions, then attempt privilege escalation. Misconfigured IAM is a leading cause of cloud breaches.
2. Database and Storage Security
We check for open S3 buckets, unsecured containers, and publicly accessible data. We also assess how your databases are exposed, accessed, and backed up.
3. Network Architecture
We review VPCs, firewall rules, security groups, and NACs to uncover open ports, public services, and insecure communication paths.
4. Application and API Testing
We probe your cloud-hosted apps, APIs, and serverless functions for vulnerabilities like SQL injection, broken access controls, or API key leakage.
5. Monitoring and Logging
We assess whether your logging systems capture relevant events. Can you detect suspicious behavior? Are alerts configured? Is your response playbook ready?
6. Container and Kubernetes Security
For organizations using containers or Kubernetes, we review cluster configurations, pod permissions, and network policies for potential security flaws.
7. Social Engineering (Optional)
We simulate phishing or credential stuffing attacks targeting your cloud console users—revealing susceptibility to real-world cloud attack vectors.
Deliverables:
You receive a detailed, prioritized report of our findings with clear remediation steps, tailored to your environment.
When Should You Run a Cloud Penetration Test?
Short answer: Now and regularly thereafter.
Recommended testing triggers:
- Before launching new cloud-based products or services
- After significant architecture or configuration changes
- As part of your annual security audit
- In preparation for compliance certifications (SOC 2, ISO, PCI, etc.)
- After onboarding third-party vendors or partners
- Post-incident, to revalidate environment integrity
Threats evolve quickly your testing strategy should too.
At Wyrdex, we recommend every 3–6 months for high-risk environments and continuous monitoring for critical workloads.
Wyrdex Doesn’t Just Test We Help You Fix
Testing is meaningless without remediation.
At Wyrdex, we partner with your internal teams to resolve vulnerabilities. We provide:
- Step-by-step remediation guidance for AWS, Azure, and GCP
- Secure IAM policy templates and architecture best practices
- Real-time support from cloud engineers and ethical hackers
- Post-remediation validation to confirm successful fixes
- Executive-ready reports for compliance and board presentations
We help you prioritize, reduce your attack surface, and build a stronger, more resilient cloud environment.
Why Choose Wyrdex?
Wyrdex is a top Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) specializing in cloud security, penetration testing, threat detection, and compliance alignment.
Related articles to read:
We support startups, enterprises, and SaaS providers that depend on the cloud and need to stay secure.
What Sets Us Apart:
- Certified ethical hackers and cloud security experts
- Real-world attack simulations (not just automated scans)
- Hands-on remediation and secure architecture advisory
- Full compliance alignment (GDPR, ISO, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, NIS2)
- Actionable, no-fluff reporting
- Long-term partnerships not one-off audits
Our mission: Help you discover and eliminate vulnerabilities before attackers do.
Don’t Wait Until You’re in the Headlines
It’s no longer a question of if a cloud breach will happen only when, if you’re unprepared.
A cloud penetration test provides visibility, validation, and control so you can defend your cloud and protect your data. It helps identify risks your internal tools can miss and proves to customers, regulators, and stakeholders that you take cloud security seriously.
Whether you’re just starting your cloud journey or managing global deployments, Wyrdex helps you test smarter, fix faster, and stay secure.