7 Risks Compromising Application Security in Cloud Computing

You can’t afford lax application security in cloud computing. At all.

Especially with cybercriminals specifically targeting cloud apps and environments. In fact, IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024 indicates 82% of data breaches targeted cloud-stored data. Similarly, 85.6% of data losses occurred in cloud storage.

So, unless you wish to be part of these statistics, it’s high time that you take securing your cloud apps seriously.

Securing Cloud Applications Isn’t Just About Data Breach Prevention

There’s much more to cloud computing application security than protecting sensitive data and defending against cyberattacks. If you need more reasons to prioritize this, here are some strong ones.

• Compliance with Regulations – Whether it’s GDPR, HIPAA, or local data protection laws, businesses are legally required to keep data safe. Failing to comply may lead to hefty fines and reputational damage.
• Business Continuity – A cyberattack can shut your operations down in seconds. On the other hand, robust security practices keep your services up and running.
• Customer Trust – People care deeply about how their data is handled. By securing your cloud applications, you show customers that you take their privacy and safety seriously. This, in turn, builds loyalty.
• Costly Breaches Prevention – Security incidents impact more than your reputation. Damage control in the form of legal fees, fines, recovery costs, and lost sales can add up quickly.
• Safe Collaboration – Ensuring application security in cloud computing makes teamwork seamless, especially if you have a remote or hybrid work environment. Only the right people access the necessary information at the right time.
• Staying Ahead of Evolving Threats – With a strong, adaptive security strategy in hand, you can stay one step ahead of hackers.

So, if you wish to ensure each of these, you shouldn’t cut any corners.

💡 Cloud app security planning should be part of app development. Get your cloud-based application development right by learning everything there is to the process.

Risks to Cloud Apps You Should Plan For

With a good idea of what’s at stake, you should gear up to ensure the following risks don’t impact your organization.

1) Phishing Attacks

Phishing remains one of the most effective tactics used by attackers to compromise cloud applications.

Employees or administrators may receive deceptive emails mimicking trusted services like Microsoft 365 or AWS, tricking them into entering login credentials or approving multi-factor authentication (MFA) prompts.

Once attackers gain access, they can exfiltrate sensitive data, modify configurations, or deploy malware. The damage is worse if the account belongs to someone with elevated privileges.

Moreover, as cloud services are always accessible via the internet, stolen credentials can be used anytime, from anywhere.

2) Insecure APIs

Another risk to application security in cloud stems from apps’ own backbone – APIs.

APIs are responsible for communication between services, apps, and users. However, when APIs are poorly designed or lack security controls, they become a major attack surface.

Common API vulnerabilities include –

• Broken authentication
• Lack of rate limiting
• Excessive data exposure
• Improper input validation

Attackers can exploit these flaws to steal data or launch cyberattacks. For example, an API that fails to enforce proper access controls might allow users to query other users’ data or manipulate system configurations.

Unfortunately, APIs are often publicly exposed to the internet. This makes them easily discoverable and testable by attackers using automated tools. Moreover, cloud-native apps frequently use microservices and third-party APIs, expanding the attack surface.

3) Misconfigured Cloud Resources

Misconfiguration is one of the leading causes of data breaches. And this is a persistent risk to application security in cloud computing despite the powerful tools offered by cloud platforms like AWS and Azure.

Misconfigured resources can appear in different forms, such as –

• Storage bucket or database left open to the public internet without authentication
• Unrestricted security groups (e.g., open ports)
• Overly permissive Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles
• Disabled encryption settings

These errors create unintended exposure, allowing attackers or even casual browsers to access or manipulate sensitive data.

What makes misconfigurations especially dangerous is that they often go unnoticed until exploited. Manual checks may also miss out on a few vulnerabilities, which is why rigorous configuration management is a must.

4) Data Oversharing

Even the most secure cloud applications can be compromised due to unintentional data oversharing. This takes place when cloud app users mistakenly grant overly broad permissions, such as sharing entire folders with external collaborators.

In some cases, APIs or integrations can also expose more data than intended. This increases the risk of data leakage, insider threats, and regulatory violations.

Therefore, cloud apps should implement fine-grained access controls, sharing expiration policies, and data classification tools to limit exposure. Without governance, sensitive data can spread like wildfire.

5) Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks

DoS attacks are designed to overwhelm cloud applications with excessive traffic or resource demands. As a result, legitimate users can’t use them anymore.

Though cloud apps tend to be resilient, they’re not immune. The most common DoS attack exploits application-layer vulnerabilities or APIs with no rate limiting, causing backend systems to crash or autoscale out of control.

Not only does this impact availability, but it can also increase cloud costs due to excessive resource consumption. And for businesses running mission-critical apps in the cloud, downtime can lead to lost revenue, customer dissatisfaction, and reputational damage.

💡 Speaking of expenses… You can’t ensure ROI from your cloud investments without employing cloud cost optimization strategies. By aligning performance with cost-efficiency, you can drive long-term business value from the cloud.

6) Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)

APTs are long-term attacks where cloud environments are infiltrated. And this risk to application security in cloud computing may remain undetected for weeks or months.

Usually carried out by highly organized criminal groups, APTs aim to steal sensitive data/intellectual property or disrupt operations. They may start off with spear phishing, exploit misconfigurations or zero-day vulnerabilities, before moving laterally across accounts or services.

Once inside, they target cloud-native tools like container orchestration platforms, or manipulate logs and monitoring tools to cover their tracks. That’s why your organization should prioritize having continuous monitoring, threat intelligence, behavior analytics, and a zero-trust security model.

7) Shadow IT

Shadow IT is the term used to describe employees using unauthorized cloud services or applications without the knowledge or approval of the IT department. These apps/services create unknown entry points, increasing the risk of data breaches, malware, or compliance violations.

These issues may not always stem from malicious intentions. Some employees cause them because they thought certain apps speed up work or bypass bureaucracy. However, it introduces serious security risks.

For starters, some of these unvetted tools may lack proper security controls, encryption, or compliance certifications. This mess can negatively impact IT teams, especially with no visibility into how data is stored, shared, or secured.

🔥 Hot tip! Use a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) to automatically detect and monitor unauthorized apps and services. Even when employees are using personal devices. Also, educate users before things spiral out of control.

Let’s Ensure Your Application Security in Cloud Computing Environments

What you need is a tech partner with experience and expertise in securing cloud applications. And that’s where we can help.

Our team specializes in identifying vulnerabilities, implementing robust security frameworks, and ensuring your cloud infrastructure is protected end-to-end.

You can even go beyond your cloud apps to secure everything IT at your organization. Whether you’re worried about website security vulnerabilities or overly permissive APIs impacting architecture, we can nip these issues in the bud.

So, let us know how we can keep your data safe and your operations resilient. Fill the form below with your requirements and we’ll get in touch ASAP.