Agentless Cloud Credential Extraction Using Secure Storage Copies
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for securing cloud resources often involve storing credentials on computing resources, making them vulnerable to exposure and potential misuse by malicious actors.
Innovation Solution
A method that involves copying cloud storage to a secure environment, scanning for credential patterns, extracting identifiers and permissions, and mitigating risks through alerts, deletions, or modifying permissions without requiring agents on the original system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If credentials are stored on cloud resources to enable authentication and access management, then ease of operation is improved, but security is worsened due to vulnerability to malicious access and credential exposure
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a copy of the cloud storage volume to a secure environment for scanning and analysis. This allows credential verification and security assessment to be performed on the copied data without exposing the original credentials stored on the cloud resource, thus maintaining authentication capability while reducing exposure risk
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary scanning mechanism that operates on copied storage data rather than directly accessing credentials on the original resource. This intermediary layer enables security verification while preventing direct exposure of stored credentials to potential attackers
2Reliability
If cloud storage is copied and scanned to detect credentials, then security is improved through risk identification, but productivity is worsened due to additional processing time and resources
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs credential detection and security assessment in advance by scanning copied storage volumes before potential attacks can occur. This preliminary security verification identifies and flags credential exposure risks proactively, allowing organizations to address vulnerabilities before they are exploited, thus improving security assurance without requiring continuous monitoring that would reduce operational efficiency
3Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If agents are deployed on cloud resources to monitor credentials, then detection capability is improved, but device complexity is worsened due to additional software installation and management
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of deploying agents on the original cloud resources, the system copies the storage volume to a secure scanning environment and performs all detection operations on the copy. This eliminates the need for agent installation and management on production systems, reducing device complexity while maintaining full credential detection capability through analysis of the copied data
Data Source
AI summary
A computing system is configured to access a cloud storage and make a copy of at least a portion of the cloud storage. The copy of the at least portion of the cloud storage to search for a data pattern associated with a credential. In response to finding the data pattern associated with the credential, the computing system extracts an identifier associated with the credential and a scope of permission that the identifier is granted to. The scope of permission is associated with a permission to access a cloud resource. Finally, a risk of potential exposure of the credential is mitigated, such as (but not limited to) notifying an owner of the cloud resource, deleting the credential from the cloud, or modifying or revoking the scope of permission associated with the credential.