5 Common Cloud Security Mistakes You’re Probably Making
The cloud brings speed, scale, and flexibility to modern organisations. It offers the chance to rethink how services are delivered and how infrastructure is managed. However, without the right security foundations in place, it can also introduce serious risks.
This post outlines five of the most common cloud security mistakes seen across our clients and more importantly, explains how to fix them.
1. Assuming Your Cloud Provider Handles Everything
Cloud providers are responsible for the infrastructure layer. Your organisation is responsible for securing data, managing access controls, and configuring workloads correctly.
Confusion around this shared responsibility model is one of the most common causes of misconfiguration and breach. It creates dangerous gaps that are easily exploited.
What to do instead:
Define clear ownership between your provider and your internal team. Once this boundary is understood, audit your cloud environment against it. Identify where your current controls fall short and prioritise any remediation work.
2. Overprovisioning Access and Failing to Revoke It
Temporary admin rights often remain in place long after they are needed. When staff move roles or leave the business, those privileges can be forgotten — creating a long-term vulnerability.
Overprivileged accounts are frequently targeted by attackers. They provide an easy route to lateral movement and data exposure.
What to do instead:
Adopt a least-privilege model as standard practice. Set time limits on elevated access. Automate permission reviews and make sure access removal is included in your offboarding processes.
Read more about least privilege and what it means for your organisation.
3. Using Default Configurations Without Review
Many cloud environments are deployed with default settings that were never intended to be secure. This includes open ports, public storage buckets, and default credentials left unchanged.
These oversights are simple to fix but remain a leading cause of cloud breaches.
What to do instead:
Harden your cloud environment during deployment. Use configuration baselines and policy validation tools to flag insecure settings. Our guide to Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) explains how to take a more systematic approach. Schedule regular reviews to ensure changes in your environment do not introduce new risks.
4. Ignoring Logs Until an Incident Happens
Logging and monitoring are often treated as optional until something goes wrong. By that point, it is usually too late to gather the data needed to understand what happened or how far the issue spread.
Without centralised logging and visibility, your team is effectively flying blind.
What to do instead:
Implement meaningful logging from day one. Use tools that correlate logs across services, and ensure someone is actively reviewing the data. If you're in an AWS environment, tools like AWS Security Hub can help consolidate alerts — but the key is making sure your team is paying attention to what matters. Visibility only helps if it leads to action.
5. Confusing Compliance with Security
Passing an audit does not mean your cloud environment is secure. Compliance frameworks are designed to set minimum standards, but they rarely reflect the full picture of how real-world threats unfold.
Many organisations meet regulatory requirements while still leaving high-impact risks unaddressed. Attackers are not concerned with your last audit result — they exploit what is misconfigured, exposed, or poorly monitored.
What to do instead:
Treat compliance as a baseline, not a finished product. Build your cloud security strategy around practical threats, business impact, and operational behaviour. Focus on how your systems are actually used and where the likely weaknesses lie.
Improving Cloud Security in Practice
Cloud missteps can lead to disruption, data loss, and reputational damage. Fortunately, the most common mistakes are also the most preventable. With the right visibility and the right processes, cloud security becomes an asset rather than a liability.
If you are unsure where the gaps are in your current setup, we can help. Defended Solutions works directly with in-house teams to assess posture, identify risks, and strengthen security across cloud environments. Get in touch today.
FAQ’s
What is the biggest cloud security risk?
Misconfiguration is one of the most common and dangerous risks in cloud environments. It often results from unclear responsibilities and default settings left in place.
Is compliance the same as cloud security?
No. Compliance frameworks help guide good practice, but they do not guarantee that your cloud setup is secure against real-world threats.
How do I secure my cloud infrastructure?
Start by understanding your shared responsibility model, applying least-privilege access, securing configurations, enabling logging, and aligning your strategy to real risks.
