Cloud Pentesting

If you’ve been working through the cloud security track — AWS pentesting, IAM escalation, S3 misconfigs — the natural next question is: do you validate those skills with a cert? For Azure specifically, the AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate is the answer. This review breaks down whether it’s worth your time and money in 2026. What Is the AZ-500? The AZ-500 is Microsoft’s vendor cert for Azure security. It covers: ...

The cloud is where the money is. It’s also where most of the misconfiguration lives, the IAM sprawl runs unchecked, and the attack surface has grown faster than most organizations can track. If you’re doing offensive or defensive cloud security work in 2026, the AWS Certified Security Specialty (SCS-C02) is one of the few certifications that actually reflects what the job looks like. This is a full honest review — what the exam covers, how hard it is, what it costs, and whether it belongs in your cert stack. ...

Google Cloud is no longer just AWS’s little sibling. It’s the backbone of YouTube, Google Workspace, and thousands of Fortune 500 environments. In 2026, GCP powers a significant chunk of enterprise infrastructure — and most red teams still don’t know how to attack it properly. This guide fixes that. We’ll walk through a complete GCP attack chain: from passive recon through persistence, using real commands against real services. If you’ve done our AWS pentesting guide or Azure pentesting guide , this follows the same structure — but GCP has its own quirks that’ll trip you up if you treat it like AWS. ...

AWS IAM is both the most powerful and most abused system in cloud security. Get the permissions wrong — even slightly — and an attacker can go from a low-privilege read-only role to full AdministratorAccess in under five minutes. This guide covers every IAM privilege escalation technique that works in 2026. Real attack paths, real commands, detection notes where relevant. If you’re doing cloud pentesting, red team engagements, or studying for AWS security certs — this is the complete reference. ...

Bottom line: Cloud pentesting without the right toolchain is slow and error-prone. Pacu owns AWS post-exploitation, ScoutSuite handles multi-cloud audits, Prowler covers compliance and misconfiguration hunting, and CloudMapper visualizes what everything connects to. You need all of them. Why Cloud Pentesting Tools Matter Cloud infrastructure is not a server you can Nmap. The attack surface is IAM policies, S3 bucket permissions, Lambda function roles, EC2 metadata endpoints, VPC peering configurations, and a thousand other abstractions that have no equivalent in traditional on-prem pentesting. ...

Azure is the second-largest cloud platform on the planet and the dominant choice in enterprise environments. Microsoft’s deep integration with Active Directory, Office 365, and enterprise tooling means Azure is everywhere corporate red teams operate. If you’re doing internal red team work or enterprise pentesting in 2026, Azure is unavoidable. This guide covers the full attack chain — from initial recon through credential theft, RBAC abuse, lateral movement, and persistence — with real commands and the tools that actually work. ...

AWS is the biggest cloud provider on the planet. It’s also one of the most common attack surfaces in modern red team engagements. If you’re doing pentesting in 2026 and you don’t understand how to attack AWS, you’re leaving scope on the table. This guide covers the full attack chain — from initial recon through privilege escalation — with real commands and the tools that actually matter. You need a lab environment to practice this. Spin up a dedicated AWS account for testing. If you want a VPS to run attack tooling from, Vultr and DigitalOcean are solid choices — cheap, fast, and you can tear them down when done. ...