Cloud and container pentesting: how to conduct effective infrastructure tests

Pentesting cloud and container infrastructures means safely simulating realistic attacks against your AWS, Azure, GCP and Kubernetes/Docker environments to validate controls, configurations and detection capabilities. Focus on legally scoped testing, least‑privilege access, and automation, and use results to drive concrete hardening actions, not just compliance checklists, for your Brazilian organization.

Preparation checklist for cloud- and container-focused pentests

• Obtain written authorization, clear scope and time window for every cloud account, cluster and CI/CD component.
• Decide what is internal vs. external: Internet attack surface, VPN, private endpoints and management planes.
• Confirm production safety rules: no destructive tests, no real data exfiltration, rate limits and rollback plan.
• Prepare dedicated tester identities, jump-hosts and logging / monitoring visibility (SIEM, cloud audit logs).
• Align with business priorities: crown‑jewel workloads, sensitive data stores and critical Brazilian compliance needs.
• Plan how findings will be triaged and fixed: ownership, SLAs, retest windows and change‑management approvals.

Discovering cloud assets and mapping multi-tenant surfaces

This approach fits organizations already running workloads on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Kubernetes, with at least basic logging and change control in place. It is ideal before migrations, before audits, or when you hire pentest em cloud e containers serviços profissionais to validate your architecture.

Avoid full-scope pentests when you lack backups, have unstable production, or do not understand your own resource inventory; start with architecture review instead. If you outsource to an empresa de testes de invasão em infraestrutura cloud, ensure they share asset discovery methods transparently so you can reuse them later.

For safe asset discovery in multi‑tenant and shared‑responsibility contexts:

1. Use cloud-native inventory:
   • AWS: AWS Config, Resource Explorer, Organizations inventory.
   • Azure: Azure Resource Graph, Azure Policy, subscriptions list.
   • GCP: Cloud Asset Inventory, Organization policy analyzer.
2. Correlate accounts, subscriptions and projects with business units and data sensitivity classifications.
3. Identify multi-tenant boundaries: shared Kubernetes clusters, shared VPCs, service meshes and managed PaaS (RDS, Cloud SQL, App Service, Cloud Run, etc.).
4. Map all externally reachable endpoints: load balancers, API Gateways, managed databases with public IPs, object storage buckets, container registries and CI/CD webhooks.
5. Flag shadow resources: personal cloud accounts used by teams in Brazil, unmanaged clusters or self‑hosted runners.

For Kubernetes environments, or when you bring in consultoria de segurança para Kubernetes e containers, always include cluster control planes, ingress controllers, sidecar patterns and network policies in the asset map, not just namespaces and pods.

Assessing Identity and Access Management (IAM) attack paths

Before testing IAM, align on requirements. At minimum, you will need:

• Read‑only access to IAM configuration and logs in every in‑scope AWS account, Azure subscription and GCP project.
• Access to cloud audit logs (CloudTrail, Azure Activity, GCP Audit Logs) and SSO/IdP (Azure AD/Entra ID, Okta, etc.).
• Network access to bastion or jump-hosts used by administrators, with controlled accounts for testing.

Useful tools and frameworks include:

• Cloud‑specific IAM analyzers (for example, account permission graphing tools) to reveal privilege‑escalation chains.
• Open‑source misconfiguration scanners for AWS, Azure and GCP roles, policies and service‑linked roles.
• Attack path visualizers that combine IAM with networking and resource metadata, helping prioritize exploitable flows.

From an operational perspective, the pentest team should be allowed to:

• Simulate realistic but safe IAM actions (assume-role, token hijacking simulations, key rotation abuse) in test tenants.
• Request temporary elevated roles in non‑production accounts to validate escalation hypotheses.
• Inspect CI/CD service accounts and Kubernetes service accounts, including their bindings and cluster roles.

Prefer separate pentest identities, never reusing real admin accounts. When contracting serviços de pentest em ambientes AWS Azure e Google Cloud, require a written plan for IAM analysis, covering both cloud-native and Kubernetes RBAC perspectives.

Evaluating network, service endpoints and misconfigurations in cloud

Before any active testing, keep these risk and limitation points in mind:

• Never run denial‑of‑service, password spraying or fuzzing at volumes that might impact customers or SLAs.
• Avoid touching out‑of‑scope tenants, shared services or providers' management planes.
• Use only approved testing IP ranges; register them with your cloud provider if required.
• Coordinate with operations and incident response teams so alerts are expected and triaged correctly.
• Run destructive proof‑of‑concepts only in non‑production, cloned or lab environments.

1. Map cloud networking constructs and trust zones
   Build a simple diagram of VPCs/VNets, subnets, security groups/NSGs, peering, VPNs and direct connections.
   Prioritize paths from the Internet or partner networks into sensitive segments (databases, management interfaces, jump-hosts).
2. Enumerate exposed services and endpoints
   Use cloud APIs to list all public IPs, load balancers, API gateways and managed services with external access.
   Complement with safe external scanning (rate‑limited) to validate what is actually reachable.
3. Test access controls and segmentation rules
   For each trust boundary, attempt safe connectivity tests:
   • From Internet to public endpoints: validate TLS, headers, authentication and rate‑limiting.
   • From DMZ or ingress subnets to internal services: validate that only required ports are open.
   • Between Kubernetes namespaces or pods: validate network policies and service mesh rules.

   Keep traffic volumes low, focusing on correctness of rules, not brute‑force.

4. Check for cloud-native misconfigurations
   Review security groups/NSGs, firewall rules, route tables and endpoint policies for overly permissive entries (for example, 0.0.0.0/0, "Any" protocols).
   Use managed configuration analyzers and CSPM platforms where available, but always manually validate high‑risk flags.
5. Validate exposure of management and metadata services
   Confirm that SSH/RDP, Kube API, Docker daemons and database management interfaces are not exposed publicly unless strictly required.
   Test safe access to instance/VM metadata endpoints only from in‑scope machines, avoiding automated wide scans in production.
6. Exercise application‑level entry points on cloud services
   For APIs behind cloud gateways or serverless endpoints, run targeted tests for authentication, authorization and input handling.
   Coordinate with application owners to avoid impacting rate limits, message queues or background workers.

Inspecting container images, registries and CI/CD pipelines

Use this checklist to validate whether your container layer pentest is covering the essentials. It is relevant whether you test internally or via auditoria de segurança e pentest para Docker e Kubernetes executed by external specialists.

• All container registries (managed and self‑hosted) are identified, including mirrors used in Brazilian regions.
• Read‑only access to Dockerfiles or build manifests exists for all in‑scope images.
• Automated image vulnerability scans are run, and findings are reviewed manually for critical and exploitable issues.
• Base images and tags used in production are documented, avoiding floating tags such as "latest" for critical workloads.
• Secrets, tokens and keys are checked for exposure in image layers, environment variables and CI/CD configs.
• Supply‑chain integrity is evaluated: signing (for example, cosign), SBOM generation and verification policies.
• Registry access controls are reviewed: who can push, pull, delete, create webhooks and manage tokens.
• CI/CD agents, runners and build servers are in scope, including their OS hardening and credential storage.
• Promotion flows (dev → staging → production) are traced to identify where tests and approvals can be bypassed.
• Roll‑back and hot‑fix procedures are tested conceptually to ensure secure images are used under pressure.

Runtime analysis: container escape, host pivoting and lateral movement

These are frequent mistakes during runtime‑focused pentests against Kubernetes and Docker, especially when engagement rules are weakly defined.

• Running container escape exploits directly in production clusters instead of controlled labs with realistic replicas.
• Ignoring host and kernel hardening (AppArmor, SELinux, seccomp, auditd) when evaluating breakout feasibility.
• Assuming "root in container" equals "root on host" without validating cgroup, namespace and runtime isolation.
• Overlooking Kubernetes RBAC and admission controllers when planning lateral movement between namespaces.
• Failing to coordinate with SOC/Blue Team to observe detections while simulating privilege escalation.
• Not testing compromise paths via auxiliary components such as service mesh sidecars, operators or custom controllers.
• Neglecting cloud‑native logs (for example, managed Kubernetes audit logs) and relying only on node logs.
• Using aggressive scanners that overload API servers, schedulers or etcd, causing cluster instability.
• Skipping post‑test clean‑up, leaving backdoor accounts, debug pods or test images in registries.
• Documenting only technical exploits, not the real business impact or blast radius in your Brazilian context.

Deliverables: prioritized findings, risk remediation and compliance alignment

When closing a cloud and container pentest, different deliverable patterns make sense depending on maturity and goals. Consider these options, which can be combined.

1. Risk‑prioritized technical report
   Ideal for engineering‑driven teams comfortable with Terraform, Helm and GitOps. Findings are ordered by exploitability × impact, with concrete remediation examples and test evidence, focusing less on formal compliance mapping.
2. Compliance‑oriented mapping
   Suited when preparing for audits (LGPD‑driven controls, ISO‑based programs, or customer questionnaires). Each finding is linked to relevant controls, shared‑responsibility areas and compensating controls, helping explain cloud specifics to auditors.
3. Executive summary and remediation workshop
   Best when you need sponsorship for structural changes (for example, multi‑account strategy, central IAM, Kubernetes baseline). The pentest team presents attack paths in business language and runs working sessions with platform and security teams.
4. Continuous improvement roadmap
   Useful after repeated pentests or when you work closely with a long‑term consultoria de segurança para Kubernetes e containers. Deliverables emphasize capability maturity, detection gaps, automation and metrics, not just one‑off vulnerabilities.

Comparative focus areas across major clouds and container stacks

The table below summarizes where to emphasize effort when planning serviços de pentest em ambientes AWS Azure e Google Cloud combined with Kubernetes and Docker workloads.

Platform	High‑priority pentest focus	Typical pitfalls to watch
AWS + EKS / Docker	IAM roles and trust policies, S3 exposure, security groups, EKS control plane access, metadata endpoints.	Overly permissive IAM policies, public S3 buckets, open node ports, weak instance roles used by containers.
Azure + AKS / Docker	Entra ID integration, NSGs and Azure Firewall, managed identities, AKS API, storage accounts.	Flat role assignments at subscription level, public storage, exposed management ports, weak pod identity isolation.
GCP + GKE / Docker	Project and folder IAM, service accounts, Cloud Storage, VPC firewall rules, GKE master access.	Service account key sprawl, broad editor roles, open firewall rules, public clusters without proper controls.

Operational, legal and scoping considerations

How do I stay within legal boundaries when pentesting cloud services?

Always obtain written authorization from the cloud account owner and follow each provider's penetration testing policies. Restrict testing to approved accounts, regions and IP ranges, avoid targeting shared control planes, and document that third‑party data is out of scope.

Should production environments be in scope for cloud and container pentests?

Production can be in scope if you apply strict safety rules: low‑volume tests, no destructive payloads, strong change management and real‑time monitoring. For dangerous scenarios (container escapes, data exfiltration), use cloned or lab environments instead of live production.

How detailed should the scope be for a cloud and Kubernetes pentest?

The scope should list specific cloud accounts, subscriptions, projects, clusters, namespaces, CI/CD systems and data classifications. It must also describe explicitly what is out of scope, such as certain regions, partners or third‑party managed SaaS.

What internal teams need to be involved during the engagement?

At minimum involve cloud/platform engineering, security, network operations, application owners, and the incident response or SOC team. They help avoid outages, triage alerts correctly and accelerate remediation once findings are delivered.

How often should I repeat cloud and container pentests?

Repeat them after major architectural changes (new regions, new Kubernetes clusters, new CI/CD platforms) and on a regular schedule. Many organizations alternate wide architectural reviews with deeper, focused tests on high‑risk workloads.

When is it better to hire external specialists instead of testing internally?

External experts are useful when you lack cloud security expertise, need an independent view for customers or auditors, or require specialized skills such as Kubernetes runtime exploitation. Internal teams can then focus on remediation and continuous hardening.

What if my cloud provider flags pentest traffic as an incident?

Share the authorization and scope with the provider, and coordinate testing windows in advance if necessary. Ensure your internal incident response team knows the schedule so they can quickly distinguish tests from real attacks.