RecordedFuture Cloud Threat Hunting and Defense Landscape 2025

Keypoints

• Annual cybersecurity reports generally begin with an Executive Summary outlining the scope and key findings, followed by sections on Introduction, Background, Methodology, Threat Analysis, Mitigation Strategies, and Outlook.
• These reports discuss prevalent threats and attack methods, highlighting statistics and trends related to initial access techniques, common vulnerabilities, and threat actor behaviors within different environments.
• Key statistics from the current report reveal that most initial cloud compromises arise from exposed or misconfigured cloud endpoints and stolen or weak credentials obtained via initial access brokers.
• Notable trends include increasing abuse of legitimate SaaS and IaaS resources by threat actors to mask malicious activities and the adoption of cloud-native ransomware tactics targeting storage services.
• The reports emphasize the evolution potential of certain attack vectors, with some threats like endpoint misconfiguration showing minimal evolution, while others like exploitation and abuse exhibit high potential for advancement.
• Recurring themes throughout the reports stress the critical role of proactive detection through robust logging, cloud environment configuration hardening, and leveraging native cloud security tools such as WAFs and IAM services.
• Significant findings highlight hybrid infrastructure as an enabler for attackers to pivot between cloud and on-premise environments, necessitating expanded visibility and control measures across both domains.
• Impactful takeaways include the importance of continuous monitoring, threat hunting for cloud-specific activities, and the understanding that cloud environments introduce unique cybersecurity challenges requiring tailored defense strategies.