Cloud environments today face an ever-shifting risk landscape. In 2023–2024, attackers exploited software flaws, stolen credentials, and misconfigurations to infiltrate high-value targets. These breaches throw light on the fact that defensive measures must go beyond detection. They serve as lessons for organizations to learn from and employ swift, automated cloud security remediation to block threats before they escalate. 

In this blog, we dissect three recent incidents, draw out actionable guidance, and show how prevention — powered by Saner Cloud — can keep your data safe. 

But before diving into our selection breaches to study, let’s take a look at some of the biggest breaches over the last two years. 

Incident Name	Date (approx.)	Affected Individuals/Entities	Primary Cause	Lesson
National Public data	Dec 2023	1.3 billion individuals (2.9) billion records	Misconfigured cloud storage bucket	Configuration oversights can trigger catastrophic failures
AT&T (Snowflake-related)	2022 (Disclosed in 2024)	110 million customers	Weak authentication at a third-party vendor	Third-party security gaps cascade across your stack
AT&T (Second breach)	2024	73 million customers	Credential compromise (encrypted passwords)	Persistent credential threats demand rapid response
Dell Brute-Force Attack	May 2024	49 million records	Brute-force attack	Basic credential hygiene and MFA are non-negotiable
Toyota Cloud Misconfiguration	June 2023	260,000 customers	Misconfigured cloud environment	Even large enterprises fall prey to simple errors
Change Healthcare Ransomware	Feb 2024	100-190 million people	Missing MFA on remote-access portal	Neglecting basic controls leads to systemic disruption

Unauthenticated Access in MOVEit’s SFTP Module 

What happened: 

On June 25, 2024, ReliaQuest disclosed CVE-2024-5806, an improper-authentication flaw in Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer SFTP component. Though not as widely exploited as last year’s SQL-injection bug, this vulnerability allowed remote actors to bypass login checks and gain unauthorized access to sensitive files. 

Lessons learned: 

• Immediate Patch Validation: Even when a patch is released swiftly, organizations must validate compatibility and deploy it within hours. Delays leave a window for adversaries to probe and weaponize new flaws. 

• Automated Configuration Drift Detection: Continuous checks should flag any changes to authentication modules. If an unexpected SFTP-service restart occurs after patching, it may indicate partial or failed deployment. 

• Least-Privilege Service Accounts: The SFTP service-account should only read/write designated directories. Restrict any default permissions that could expose broader file sets if compromised.
   

Systematic Credential Theft and Extortion on Snowflake 

What happened: 

In June 2024, UNC5537 systematically compromised at least 165 Snowflake customer instances by harvesting long-lived API keys and passwords via phishing campaigns. Stolen credentials enabled data exfiltration from organizations including Ticketmaster and AT&T, followed by extortion demands on cyber-forums. 

Lessons learned: 

• Secrets Management with Vaulting: Store all API keys and connection strings in a dedicated vault, like Azure Key Vault and AWS Secrets Manager. Eliminate hard-coded credentials to reduce the blast radius of leaks. 

• Mandatory Short-Lived Tokens: Where possible, replace static keys with ephemeral tokens. Then, rotate them every few hours and automatically revoke upon suspicion of misuse. 

• Behavioral Analytics for Data Transfers: Integrate monitoring that flags anomalous bulk downloads or queries outside typical business hours. Rapidly intercept suspicious sessions to trigger cloud security remediation playbooks. 

Open-Bucket Data Sharing by Criminal Syndicates 

What happened: 

August 2024 research by vpnMentor uncovered a criminal ring using publicly exposed AWS S3 buckets as a shared drive for stolen files. Victims’ data remained accessible until AWS Security intervened in November 2024. 

Lessons learned: 

• Enforce “Block Public Access” by Policy: Embed a global S3 setting or Terraform/CLOUDFORMATION template that denies any public ACL. No bucket should be accessible to the internet by default. 

• Automated Posture-Assessment Scans: Run hourly CSPM checks to detect newly public buckets. As soon as a bucket fails, trigger a Lambda function to reset its ACL and notify security teams. 

• Remediation Playbooks with Snapshots: Upon detection, snapshot the bucket’s contents for forensic review, then immediately lock down permissions to halt ongoing exfiltration. 

Embedding Prevention in Development Pipelines 

Effective cloud security remediation begins before code reaches production. Integrate these steps: 

1. Static and Dynamic Testing in CI/CD 

• Run SAST/DAST tools against pull requests to catch injection flaws, misconfigured IAM policies, and exposed secrets. 

• Block merging of any change that fails a security check, then auto-open a remediation ticket. 

2. Policy-as-Code for Infrastructure 

• Define guardrails in policy-as-code frameworks. Prevent IAM policies with wildcard actions or unrestricted resource ARNs. 

• Enforce JSON schema validation for all IaC templates. 

3. Regular Red-Team Simulations 

• Conduct quarterly adversary-emulation exercises that mimic MOVEit-style exploits or Snowflake-style credential theft. 

• Measure mean time to detection (MTTD) and mean time to remediation (MTTR) for each scenario. 

Operationalizing Automated Remediation Workflows 

To accelerate response and reduce manual toil: 

• Orchestrated Response Runners: 
  Deploy serverless functions that, on alert, update security group rules, rotate keys, or toggle S3 ACLs, all without waiting for human intervention. 

• Self-Healing Baselines: 
  Maintain a known-good state in each account. When drift is detected, a new public bucket or a risky IAM role, for example, instantly revert to baseline and quarantine changes. 

• Integrated Ticketing and Reporting: 
  Link every anomaly detected to a ticket in your ITSM tool, assign priority based on severity, and attach automated remediation logs. Doing so guarantees auditability and compliance. 

Fostering a Prevention-First Culture 

Prevention isn’t solely a problem that revolves around technology. It’s a mindset. 

• Executive Risk Reviews: Present quarterly threat-trend reports to leadership, touching on the progress on patch-apply times and reduction in high-severity drift incidents. 

• Cross-Functional “Security Champions”: Embed developers, ops, and compliance staff in security guilds. Empower them with dashboards that show live posture metrics and remediation statuses. 

• Continuous Training and Playbooks: 
  Maintain playbooks for each major threat that may arise from the supply-chain, credential theft, or misconfigurations. Test them via tabletop exercises and update after every real-world incident. 

Saner Cloud: Your Partner in Prevention and True Remediation 

When prevention is the need of the hour, you need a CNAPP that: 

• Unifies Posture Management: 
  Saner Cloud’s real-time dashboards categorize assets, anomalies, and patch states across AWS and Azure. 

• Automates Detection and Fixes: 
  Its AI-driven assistant interprets complex charts, suggests prioritized fixes, and executes remediation playbooks directly from the console. 

• Provides Generative AI Insights: 
  Users click a green icon to ask Saner AI for plain-language summaries of vulnerabilities, anomaly trends, or patch-aging reports, making risk management both proactive and collaborative. 

By centering prevention and embedding cloud security remediation into every workflow, Saner Cloud transforms reactive firefighting into disciplined, automated defense. Adopt a prevention-first stance today, and minimize the window of opportunity for attackers tomorrow.