Understanding cloud ransomware and why it's different
Cloud ransomware is malware that targets data and systems stored in cloud environments like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. This means attackers exploit cloud-specific features and APIs to steal, delete, or lock you out of your own data instead of just encrypting files on your computer.
Traditional ransomware encrypts files on your local machine and demands payment for the decryption key. Cloud ransomware works differently—it abuses the cloud services you rely on every day. Attackers might change default encryption settings and copy data to storage protected by keys they control, revoke access to existing KMS keys through policy manipulation, or delete your backups and snapshots to force you into paying a ransom.
The shift is significant because cloud environments are interconnected and dynamic. When attackers gain access to one part of your cloud, they can quickly move to other services and accounts. They're not just targeting individual files anymore—they're going after your entire cloud infrastructure.
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How cloud ransomware attacks work
Cloud ransomware attacks follow a predictable pattern that exploits how cloud services connect to each other. Attackers typically start by gaining initial access through compromised credentials or a misconfigured service.
MITRE ATT&CK for Cloud mapping:
Initial Access (TA0001): Valid Accounts (T1078.004 - Cloud Accounts), Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190)
Discovery (TA0007): Cloud Service Discovery (T1580), Cloud Storage Object Discovery (T1619)
Privilege Escalation (TA0004): Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism (T1548), Valid Accounts (T1078.004)
Impact (TA0040): Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486), Data Destruction (T1485), Inhibit System Recovery (T1490)
Exfiltration (TA0010): Transfer Data to Cloud Account (T1537), Exfiltration Over Web Service (T1567)
This framework helps security teams map detections to specific attack phases and prioritize controls based on observed adversary behavior.
Once inside, they focus on privilege escalation using native cloud features. They might abuse directory synchronization service accounts—such as Microsoft Entra Connect (formerly Azure AD Connect), AD FS federation, OIDC/SAML identity providers, or SCIM provisioning accounts—to pivot from on-premises Active Directory into your cloud identity provider. From there, they can abuse overly permissive roles and policies—such as AWS sts:AssumeRole chains, Azure Owner or Contributor roles, GCP service account impersonation, or service principals with excessive permissions—to gain deeper access across your cloud environment.
The final stage involves taking control of your encryption keys or deleting critical resources. Attackers often target key management services because controlling these keys means they can lock you out of your own data. They create what security experts call "toxic combinations"—chains of small misconfigurations that together create devastating attack paths.
Dissecting Cloud Attacks and Attack Vectors
Cloud attacks are malicious activities that target cloud data and infrastructure. By exploiting cloud vulnerabilities, attackers try to access and tamper with cloud data by exfiltrating sensitive information or disrupting operations.
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Common cloud ransomware attack vectors
Cloud environments create unique entry points that attackers actively exploit. These vulnerabilities often stem from the speed of cloud development, where security can lag behind innovation.
Exposed secrets represent one of the biggest risks. Developers accidentally leave API keys, passwords, and tokens in public code repositories or container images. Attackers scan these repositories constantly, looking for credentials they can use to access your cloud accounts.
Misconfigured storage provides another common entry point. Publicly accessible object storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage), unsecured managed databases (Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Cosmos DB), and exposed file shares (Amazon EFS, Azure Files, FSx, Google Filestore) give attackers direct access to your data without needing to compromise compute resources. Once they have this access, they can exfiltrate information and demand ransom payments.
Overly permissioned identities allow attackers to move laterally once they're inside your environment. Service accounts with excessive permissions or users with admin rights they don't need create opportunities for privilege escalation.
Supply chain attacks target the third-party services and integrations you rely on. Attackers compromise CI/CD pipelines, container registries, or federated authentication systems to gain trusted access to your cloud environment, contributing to ransomware remaining the top threat to critical infrastructure.
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Detecting cloud ransomware threats
Early detection of cloud ransomware requires monitoring multiple signals across your entire cloud infrastructure. Unlike traditional ransomware that announces itself immediately, cloud attacks often remain hidden while attackers gather information and establish persistence.
Top detection signals to enable:
Logging tampering: CloudTrail StopLogging, UpdateTrail, DeleteTrail; Azure Monitor diagnostic setting deletions; GCP Audit Log sink modifications
Mass deletion: High-volume DeleteObject, DeleteSnapshot, DeleteDBSnapshot, DeleteBackupVault calls within short time windows (e.g., >100 deletions in 5 minutes)
Public exposure: PutBucketPolicy or PutBucketAcl that adds public access; Azure Storage account firewall rule changes; GCP IAM policy bindings with allUsers or allAuthenticatedUsers
Key manipulation: KMS DisableKey, ScheduleKeyDeletion, PutKeyPolicy changes; Azure Key Vault access policy modifications; GCP KMS CryptoKey permission changes
Abnormal egress: Data transfer volumes exceeding baseline by 3x or more; transfers to unfamiliar regions or IP ranges
IAM escalation: AssumeRole chains to admin roles; Azure role assignments to Owner or Contributor; GCP service account key creation or impersonation
Backup tampering: Changes to backup retention policies, vault access policies, or replication configurations
Configure alerts with 5-15 minute detection windows and correlate across identity, data, and network layers.
Watch for unusual API activity in AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Logs, and GCP Cloud Audit Logs. Specific signals include: spikes in GetObject or ListBucket calls with corresponding data egress, IAM role assumption or assignment changes, KMS Encrypt/Decrypt/DisableKey operations or key policy updates, AWS Backup or Azure Backup Vault policy modifications, and attempts to execute StopLogging or alter log retention settings. Mass data downloads or transfers to unknown locations are classic warning signs of data exfiltration.
Behavioral analytics help establish what normal activity looks like in your environment. When identities suddenly gain new permissions they've never used before, or when encryption keys are created or modified without authorization, these deviations from normal patterns indicate potential attacks. Focus on anomalies in key operations like CloudTrail StopLogging or UpdateTrail, mass DeleteObject or DeleteSnapshot calls, PutBucketPolicy changes that publicize access, KMS key policy modifications, or unusual data egress volumes.
Real-time correlation across identity, network, and data layers is essential. Cloud ransomware attacks involve multiple steps across different services, so you need tools that can piece together the full attack story from scattered signals. Using a unified security graph to correlate identity permissions, network exposure, data sensitivity, and runtime behavior accelerates triage by showing the complete attack path—not just isolated alerts. This graph-based approach helps security teams understand how a compromised service account connects to sensitive data through specific permission chains and network routes.
Preventing cloud ransomware attacks
Prevention starts with understanding that cloud ransomware exploits the very features that make cloud computing powerful. Your defense strategy must use cloud-native controls to harden your environment against these attacks.
Least privilege access forms the foundation of cloud ransomware prevention. Every identity in your environment—whether human users or service accounts—should have only the minimum permissions needed to do their job. This limits how far attackers can move if they compromise any single identity.
Configuration hardening prevents the misconfigurations that attackers exploit. Use infrastructure-as-code scanning to catch security issues before they're deployed to production. Guardrails should be enforced consistently from code to cloud with a single policy engine—scanning Terraform, CloudFormation, and Kubernetes manifests in CI/CD pipelines, then validating the same policies against running cloud resources. This unified approach ensures misconfigurations never reach production and that drift from secure baselines is immediately detected. The "shift-left" strategy fixes problems at the source rather than trying to patch them later.
Backup security requires special attention in cloud environments. Use cloud-native immutability and isolation controls:
AWS S3 Object Lock (Governance or Compliance mode) and AWS Backup Vault Lock with minimum retention periods
Azure Blob immutability policies (time-based retention or legal hold) and Azure Backup Immutable Vault with Soft Delete enabled
GCP Bucket Lock with retention policies and backup copy-on-write protections
Cross-account (AWS), cross-subscription (Azure), or cross-project (GCP) isolation with distinct administrative roles
Object versioning plus lifecycle policies and MFA Delete where supported
Regular restoration testing in isolated environments to validate recovery procedures
Verify controls with CloudTrail/Activity Logs queries for PutObjectLockConfiguration, SetImmutabilityPolicy, and retention policy changes. Test restoration quarterly in isolated environments.
Enforce security guardrails with AWS Service Control Policies through AWS Organizations, Azure Policy and Blueprints through Management Groups, and Organization Policies in GCP. Prevent destructive changes with provider-specific locks: Azure Resource Locks (CanNotDelete or ReadOnly), GCP Delete Protection on resources, and AWS termination protection combined with explicit deny policies for critical resources.
A unified platform that connects misconfigurations, identity permissions, data exposure, and runtime signals helps security teams focus on real attack paths rather than chasing individual alerts. When prevention controls (like least privilege and configuration hardening), detection capabilities (like behavioral analytics and log correlation), and response workflows (like automated investigation and containment) share a common data model, teams can move from reactive alert triage to proactive risk reduction. This integrated approach is essential for defending against cloud ransomware, where attacks exploit chains of small issues across your environment.
Responding to and recovering from cloud ransomware
Cloud incident response differs significantly from traditional approaches because cloud resources are ephemeral and evidence exists primarily in API logs rather than disk images. Time is critical—attackers can cause widespread damage in minutes once they have access.
First 60 minutes response checklist:
0-15 minutes (Triage):
Freeze logging configurations (enable CloudTrail log file validation, lock Azure Monitor diagnostic settings, enable GCP Admin Activity log retention)
Snapshot affected instances, volumes, and databases for forensic analysis
Export CloudTrail/Activity Logs/Audit Logs to immutable storage in separate account
15-30 minutes (Containment):
Revoke sessions for compromised identities (AWS IAM session revocation, Azure AD token revocation, GCP service account key deletion)
Apply explicit deny policies to suspicious principals
Enable AWS Backup Vault Lock, Azure Immutable Vault, or GCP retention policies if not already active
Isolate affected VPCs/VNets/VPCs with security group or firewall rule changes
30-45 minutes (Validation):
Verify backup integrity in isolated account by attempting test restoration
Rotate all credentials and API keys that may have been exposed
Review IAM policies and role assignments for unauthorized changes
45-60 minutes (Communication):
Notify stakeholders per incident response plan
Document timeline and affected resources for compliance reporting
Engage legal and compliance teams if data exfiltration is confirmed
This runbook assumes pre-configured automation and tested playbooks.
Cloud forensics relies on analyzing API and audit logs—AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Logs and Azure Monitor, GCP Cloud Audit Logs—alongside configuration histories from AWS Config, Azure Resource Graph with Change History, and GCP Config Connector or Cloud Asset Inventory. Investigators also examine retained snapshots, object versions, and metadata from ephemeral resources like containers and serverless functions that may no longer exist. Automated investigation that builds an incident timeline and blast radius from code to cloud can cut mean time to respond (MTTR) from hours to minutes during a ransomware event. You need pre-established playbooks that automatically correlate identity actions, resource changes, and data access patterns to reconstruct the attack chain without manual log analysis.
Recovery challenges in cloud environments include:
Restoring encryption keys if attackers compromised your key management service
Rebuilding identity trust by auditing and re-securing all IAM roles and users
Isolating affected accounts or networks to prevent lateral movement
Validating data integrity before restoring from backups
Establish resilient key management practices: protect KMS customer-managed keys with multi-admin approval policies and deletion protection (7-30 day waiting periods), use AWS multi-Region keys or Azure Key Vault geo-replication where applicable, maintain key policies and key aliases under version-controlled infrastructure-as-code, and consider AWS CloudHSM or Azure Managed HSM with key export capabilities if offline recovery is a regulatory requirement.
How Wiz Defend detects and responds to cloud ransomware threats
Wiz provides comprehensive protection against cloud ransomware through integrated prevention, detection, and response capabilities designed specifically for cloud environments.
Complete visibility comes from Wiz's agentless scanning that covers your entire cloud environment without requiring agents on every resource. This approach eliminates blind spots where ransomware can hide and ensures you have full coverage across VMs, containers, and serverless functions.
Attack path analysis through the Wiz Security Graph identifies the toxic combinations of vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and excessive permissions that create ransomware attack paths. Instead of chasing individual alerts, you can focus on the critical risks that actually matter.
Real-time threat detection uses behavioral analytics and a lightweight eBPF-based runtime sensor to identify suspicious activity as it happens with minimal performance overhead. The system recognizes patterns associated with ransomware attacks—like lateral movement, privilege escalation, and data exfiltration—and provides immediate context for investigation by correlating runtime events with cloud configuration, identity permissions, and network topology.
Automated investigation generates attack timelines and visualizes blast radius when threats are detected, reducing investigation time from hours to minutes. Runtime blocking capabilities let you immediately contain threats while preserving forensic evidence for analysis.
Prevention at the source through Wiz Code scans infrastructure-as-code templates and software dependencies in your CI/CD pipeline. This catches vulnerabilities and misconfigurations before they reach production, eliminating ransomware entry points at the source.
Request a demo to see agentless coverage across your entire cloud environment, graph-powered attack path analysis that prioritizes real risks over noise, and real-time cloud detection and response that helps prevent and contain ransomware with automated investigation and runtime blocking.
