Public cloud infrastructure presents security teams with a new invisible management layer, creating new security challenges that demand better understanding. Many organizations don’t properly understand the cloud identity and access management layer and often fail to secure it.

Such misunderstandings usually lead to dangerous misconfigurations that can drive customer risk; for example, in the case of the recent Capital One breach. Current security practices and controls are not sufficient to mitigate the risk posed by misunderstanding of the public cloud, explain Igal Gofman, XM head of security research, and Yaron Shani, XM senior security researcher.