Cloud security tools flag thousands of issues daily. Most pose minimal risk in isolation. But when certain configurations, permissions, and vulnerabilities connect, they create attack paths that can compromise entire infrastructures. We call these "toxic combinations" - and they're quietly putting businesses at risk.
A misconfigured storage bucket might seem harmless. Add privileged credentials stored in a public code repository, and suddenly attackers have everything they need to breach sensitive customer data. These scenarios play out regularly in cloud environments, yet traditional security approaches often miss these critical connection points.
This post examines toxic combinations in cloud security, showing you how to spot these dangerous patterns before attackers exploit them. You'll learn practical techniques to identify risk combinations, understand their business impact, and build stronger defences against these sophisticated threats.
Security teams often track individual vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and access permissions across their cloud infrastructure. A single vulnerability might rank as low risk. An overly permissive IAM role might seem acceptable for a development environment. But combine these elements, and they create attack paths that bypass your security controls.
These toxic combinations occur when multiple cloud components interact in ways that amplify risk. Take a web application with a minor vulnerability. On its own, it might only allow limited access. But if that application runs on a virtual machine with high-privilege cloud credentials, attackers can use this combination to move laterally through your infrastructure and access sensitive data.
What are Toxic Combinations?
Three key elements typically form toxic combinations:
Modern cloud environments make these combinations particularly dangerous. Resources don't exist in isolation - a single application might use services across multiple cloud providers, each with unique security settings. One weak link in this chain can compromise the entire system.
Most cloud security breaches stem from attackers finding and exploiting connected weaknesses. Here's how toxic combinations create dangerous attack paths:
A marketing team has their website running on cloud infrastructure. The web application has a common vulnerability - nothing major on its own. But the application runs with admin-level cloud credentials, meant to help it fetch content from various services. An attacker exploiting the minor web app vulnerability gains access to these powerful credentials, opening up the entire cloud environment.
Software teams commonly use CI/CD pipelines to deploy code. A pipeline might use service credentials to automate deployments. If those credentials get accidentally committed to a public code repository, attackers gain the keys to production systems. The toxic combination here? Public exposure of credentials that have broad system access.
Many organisations run services across multiple cloud providers. An analytics service in AWS might need to access data in Azure. The connection requires privileged access keys. If attackers compromise the less-secured analytics service, they can use its credentials to breach data in both cloud environments.
These scenarios highlight why examining security issues in isolation misses critical risks. The danger lies in the connections - how attackers can chain together different weaknesses to breach critical systems.
Finding toxic combinations requires moving beyond simple vulnerability scanning. Modern cloud environments need security tools that understand relationships between resources and can spot dangerous patterns.
Advanced security platforms map connections between cloud resources, permissions, and vulnerabilities. These security graphs reveal potential attack paths, or the routes an attacker could take through your systems, by tracking how different components interact.
Raw vulnerability counts or security alerts don't tell the full story. Security teams need tools that analyse the context:
Traditional agent-based scanning often misses critical parts of cloud infrastructure. Modern solutions take an agentless approach, scanning your entire cloud environment without impacting performance. This ensures complete visibility across virtual machines, containers, serverless functions, and AI workloads.
A typical cloud environment generates thousands of security findings but only a small subset represent truly critical risks. Smart prioritisation focuses on toxic combinations that create real attack paths to sensitive data or critical systems.
Protecting your cloud environment from toxic combinations starts with knowing what matters most. Identify your crown jewels - the systems and data that keep your business running. This might be your customer database, payment processing systems, or core business applications. Understanding these critical assets helps focus your security efforts where they count.
Access patterns form the next crucial piece of the puzzle. Examine how your services connect and interact with critical resources. Many organisations discover unnecessary access paths or overprovisioned service accounts during this process. A development environment might have direct access to production data, or a monitoring service might run with administrative privileges it doesn't need.
Breaking potential attack chains requires careful changes to your cloud architecture. Reduce service account privileges to the minimum needed for operation. Add network segmentation to limit lateral movement. Put extra authentication barriers around sensitive systems. Small architectural adjustments can significantly reduce your risk exposure.
Set up continuous monitoring to catch new toxic combinations before they become problems. Cloud environments change rapidly as teams deploy new services and update configurations. Automated checks can spot dangerous permission changes or suspicious access patterns early. Regular security reviews help ensure your defences stay strong as your cloud infrastructure grows.
Most importantly, make security reviews part of your routine operations. Monthly configuration checks catch drift from security baselines. Quarterly access reviews prevent permission bloat. Regular testing validates your defences. These reviews shouldn't feel like extra work as they're essential maintenance for healthy cloud environments.
Toxic combinations pose a unique threat in cloud security - they're hard to spot, dangerous when exploited, and multiply as your cloud footprint grows. Traditional security tools that focus on individual vulnerabilities or misconfigurations often miss these critical connection points, leaving organisations exposed to sophisticated attacks.
Security teams need tools that understand how cloud components connect and interact. Without clear visibility into these relationships, you're essentially playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole with your security alerts. The right platform can cut through thousands of security findings to highlight the combinations that truly matter, helping you focus on real risks to your business.
Ready to spot toxic combinations in your cloud environment? Our team can show you how to map potential attack paths and identify critical security gaps using the power of security graphs and agentless scanning. Book a demo today to see how quickly you can uncover and eliminate toxic combinations across your cloud infrastructure.