Case Study

Multi-Cloud AI Breach 2024

A major security incident where misconfigured access controls across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud led to unauthorized access to sensitive AI training data and model parameters.

Affected Platforms
3

Cloud providers compromised (AWS, Azure, GCP)

Data Exposed
2.3TB

Training data and model weights exfiltrated

Breach Duration
45 days

Time attackers had unauthorized access

Root Causes

Configuration Errors

  • • Publicly accessible S3 buckets containing training data
  • • Overly permissive IAM roles with cross-account access
  • • Azure storage containers with anonymous read access
  • • GCP service accounts with excessive permissions

Monitoring Gaps

  • • Insufficient logging of cross-cloud data access
  • • No alerting on unusual data transfer volumes
  • • Lack of unified security monitoring across clouds
  • • Delayed incident response due to siloed teams
Security Improvements

Immediate Actions

  • • Audit and remediate all storage permissions
  • • Implement least privilege access policies
  • • Enable encryption for all data at rest
  • • Deploy cloud security posture management (CSPM)

Long-term Strategy

  • • Unified identity and access management
  • • Centralized logging and SIEM integration
  • • Regular security audits and penetration testing
  • • Security training for cloud engineering teams