Cloud Security: Why Identity and Configuration Are the Real Perimeter

Nothing broke. Nothing crashed. No alarms went off. Someone clicked a box, someone skipped a setting, someone assumed the default was safe. And the cloud did exactly what it was told.

This episode explains cloud security by starting with the most important shift: in the cloud, identity is the perimeter. There is no fence, no lobby, no locked server room. If someone has valid credentials, they don't break in, they sign in. The episode walks through how cloud security goes wrong through misconfigured storage, over-permissioned identities, leaked API keys, missing multi-factor authentication, shadow cloud adoption, and absent monitoring. It covers what attackers actually do once inside, from data theft to cryptomining to quiet entrenchment, then closes with a starter kit covering MFA enforcement, least privilege, secret hygiene, storage lockdown, logging, workload hardening, API protection, and guardrail automation.

Whether you're moving to the cloud, already there and not sure what to watch, or a leader trying to understand why your team keeps talking about misconfigurations, Plaintext with Rich breaks it down.

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