Introduction
We think of cyberattacks as external. But one of the most dangerous vectors is already inside: the cloud admin, the third-party contractor, or the misconfigured identity provider. According to Verizon’s DBIR 2024, 19% of data breaches originated from insiders, including cloud administrators with elevated access.
Let’s explore how insider access, whether malicious or accidental, turns cloud systems into security liabilities and how self-hosted on-prem infrastructure puts you back in control.
You Don’t Control the Cloud Root User
Every cloud service has a “god mode”, a root user or privileged account that exists outside of your team’s control. Vendors say it’s secure, but breaches like the 2023 Okta and 2024 Microsoft Exchange admin credential leaks prove otherwise. Once a cloud root is compromised, all bets are off.
With on-prem systems managed by EXIGENCY, there is no third-party root. You own the keys, the console, and the firewall.
Admin Abuse Isn’t Always Malicious
Not every insider is a villain but negligence is just as damaging. Contractors reusing passwords. Junior admins enabling debug logging on sensitive files. Misconfigured IAM policies. These mistakes happen daily in the cloud because organizations outsource complexity.
In on-prem environments, permissions are manually audited, with local access control and complete visibility. Mistakes don’t propagate; they get blocked.
Vendor Access Is a Blind Spot
Many cloud vendors reserve the right to inspect, migrate, or modify your data “for service assurance.” This means engineers in remote locations could have elevated access without your knowledge. Regulatory frameworks like HIPAA or PCI-DSS don’t tolerate such ambiguity.
On-prem solutions, by contrast, allow you to define your own trust boundary. No one gets in without physical and digital clearance.
FINAL THOUGHTS: REDUCE ACCESS. INCREASE CONTROL.
Outsourcing infrastructure means outsourcing trust. But in a threat landscape where insiders cause nearly 1 in 5 breaches, blind trust in cloud admins isn’t a strategy, it’s a gamble.
EXIGENCY’s on-prem, zero-trust architecture eliminates unauthorized access paths. When you own your data physically and logically, you own your risk profile and your defense.
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