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Invadel

Cloud

Cloud Penetration
Testing

Starts at $6,800, fixed scope, free retest. See all pricing →

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Senior certified testers, manual-first185+ years combined experienceOnboarding within 24 hoursFree retest includedOur methodology

When you need it

When you need cloud penetration testing

The situations that bring teams to this engagement, and where it fits alongside the rest of your program.

  • You are migrating to the cloud, building a landing zone, or consolidating accounts, and want the design tested before it sets.
  • Your cloud environment is inside your SOC 2 or ISO 27001 scope and the auditor expects more than a configuration checklist.
  • An access key leaked, an IAM role was misused, or credential stuffing hit the console: what else could it reach?
  • You rolled out Kubernetes, serverless functions, or a new CI/CD pipeline with broad cloud permissions.
  • An enterprise customer or cyber-insurer asked how your cloud is secured and a CIS benchmark report did not satisfy them.
  • Your environment changes weekly and an annual test cannot keep up, which is where a recurring testing program fits.

Definition

What is cloud penetration testing?

Cloud penetration testing is a manual attack on your AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud environment that starts from a real foothold, such as a leaked key or a read-only identity, and works out how far it reaches. It finds the misconfigurations and over-privileged identities a checklist misses, then proves the attack path end to end.

One fixed price covers a single-provider account, from $6,800 with a free retest. See the cloud penetration testing price tiers.

What we look for

Cloud vulnerabilities we hunt for

Cloud breaches come from misconfiguration and over-privileged identities, not zero-days. We hunt the flaws that let an attacker turn a small foothold into control of your environment.

Identity & Access Management Flaws

Over-privileged roles and policies that let a small foothold escalate to full account control.

We test for

  • Privilege escalation paths
  • Wildcard and over-broad policies
  • Unused and stale credentials
  • Cross-account trust abuse

Storage & Data Exposure

Publicly accessible or misconfigured storage that leaks sensitive data.

We test for

  • Public buckets and blobs
  • Misconfigured ACLs and policies
  • Unencrypted data at rest
  • Snapshot and backup exposure

Network & Service Misconfiguration

Exposed services and permissive rules that widen the cloud attack surface.

We test for

  • Open security groups and firewall rules
  • Exposed management interfaces
  • Insecure default services
  • Public database endpoints

Secrets & Key Management

Hardcoded or poorly protected secrets that unlock the wider environment.

We test for

  • Secrets in code, metadata, and environment
  • Key rotation and scoping
  • Metadata service (SSRF) abuse
  • Secret manager configuration

Containers, Kubernetes & Serverless

The workload layer, where an over-privileged service account or an exposed dashboard turns one container into the whole cluster. A cluster can also be tested on its own as a Kubernetes penetration test.

We test for

  • Kubernetes RBAC and over-privileged service accounts
  • Exposed dashboards, kubelet, and etcd
  • Secrets in environment variables and images
  • Container escape and node access paths
  • Lambda, Azure Functions, and Cloud Functions injection and role abuse

Providers

AWS, Azure, and GCP: what we test on each

The attack paths are provider-specific, so the test plan is too. These are the services and identity constructs we cover on each platform, with the same depth on all three.

Amazon Web Services

Read our AWS penetration testing guide for the provider policy and common findings.

  • IAM users, roles, policies, and privilege-escalation paths
  • S3 bucket policies, ACLs, and public access settings
  • EC2 instance profiles and IMDSv1/IMDSv2 exposure
  • Lambda function roles and event-source injection
  • Security groups, NACLs, and VPC peering
  • KMS key policies and Secrets Manager access
  • Organizations, SCPs, and cross-account trust

Microsoft Azure

Read our Azure penetration testing guide for the Microsoft testing rules and the Entra ID attack paths we test. The Microsoft 365 tenant itself is a separate Microsoft 365 security assessment.

  • Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) roles, app registrations, and consent grants
  • Azure RBAC, management groups, and subscription scope
  • Blob Storage containers and shared access signatures
  • Key Vault access policies and managed identities
  • Azure Functions and App Service identities
  • Network security groups and private endpoints
  • Hybrid identity: Entra Connect and on-premises trust

Google Cloud

Read our GCP penetration testing guide for Google’s testing rules and the attack paths we follow through a project.

  • IAM bindings, service accounts, and key exposure
  • Cloud Storage bucket permissions and uniform access
  • GKE cluster RBAC and workload identity
  • Cloud Functions and Cloud Run service accounts
  • VPC firewall rules and default networks
  • Secret Manager and KMS access
  • Organization policies and project hierarchy

Approach

Configuration review vs cloud penetration test

Every cloud test includes a benchmark review; the review is where the work starts, not where it ends.

Configuration review

Question it answers
Does this setting match the recommended value?
Method
Compares your settings to the CIS Foundations benchmark for AWS, Azure, or GCP and lists the deviations.
Output
A list of deviations from the benchmark.
Included
Yes, in every cloud penetration test, or on its own from $4,200.

Cloud penetration test

Question it answers
How far does a real attacker get from a small foothold?
Method
Takes a leaked key or a read-only identity and chains the misconfigurations into a proven attack path.
Output
The attack chain proven end to end, with fixes ranked by which link breaks the most paths.
Included
The engagement itself, from $6,800 with a free retest.

Buying the review on its own? Our read-only cloud security assessment benchmarks one AWS account, Azure subscription, or GCP project against CIS and is reported by hand, from $4,200. Our cloud security best practices checklist covers the controls both engagements check.

Methodology

Cloud penetration testing methodology

Full methodology →

Every engagement follows the Penetration Testing Execution Standard and the relevant OWASP guides.

These are the phases your cloud penetration testing runs through.

  1. 01

    Scope & access model

    Accounts, subscriptions, projects, and the credential level we test from.

  2. 02

    Inventory & configuration

    Identities, storage, network rules, and workloads mapped and benchmarked against CIS.

  3. 03

    Attack-path analysis

    Privilege-escalation and lateral-movement paths built from the misconfigurations found.

  4. 04

    Exploitation

    Paths proven end to end, from a small foothold toward control of the environment.

  5. 05

    Report & retest

    Prioritized hardening plan, then a free retest of remediated findings.

How it works

How your engagement runs

From scope through the final retest, your team stays in the loop at every step, with findings tracked live in our platform.

  1. 01

    Scope & kickoff

    Targets, roles, and rules of engagement defined in writing, with a fixed scope and timeline.

  2. 02

    Testing goes live

    Findings post to your live platform dashboard the moment our testers confirm them.

  3. 03

    Track remediation

    Follow every finding from open to fixed, with severity, evidence, and status in one place.

  4. 04

    Report & retest

    Executive and technical reports land, then request a free retest in one click.

Compliance

Compliance frameworks this test satisfies

Findings are mapped to the requirement or control they evidence, so the same report serves your auditor, your customers, and your engineers.

SOC 2Evidence for CC6.1, CC6.6, and CC7.1 across the cloud accounts inside your audit boundary.ISO 27001Annex A 8.8 technical vulnerability management and A 8.9 configuration management evidence for cloud infrastructure.PCI DSSRequirement 11.4 testing for a cloud-hosted cardholder data environment, including segmentation between accounts and VPCs.HIPAATechnical safeguard evidence for ePHI stored and processed in cloud services.NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500Coverage of cloud-hosted information systems within the annual §500.5 penetration testing requirement.
Common inFintechSaaS & SoftwareHedge Funds & Asset ManagersInsuranceMedia & AdTechStartupsAll industries

Proof

Proof in the field

Every engagement is confidential, so the work below is anonymized to sector and engagement type.

All case studies →

Free

Retest on every penetration test

185+

Years combined experience

14

Senior in-house specialists

24h

Onboarding after signing

Fintech · Payments

Web Application Penetration Test

High risk

Critical: a remote code execution flaw in the application’s web framework that could have given an attacker full control of the server. We escalated it to the development team while the test was still running.

Outcome. The critical RCE was reported and remediated during the engagement via an emergency framework upgrade, which also closed the server-side request forgery, and the remaining findings were retested to confirmation.

1

Critical (RCE)

Mid-test

Critical remediated

2

High

Read the case study

HR & Payroll SaaS

Web Application Penetration Test

High risk

Critical: a file-inclusion flaw that let an attacker read sensitive files from the server through the application itself. High: stored cross-site scripting capable of session theft, insecure direct object references, and an authorization bypass that let an administrator create or delete organization owners.

Outcome. Delivered a remediation plan sequenced by real business impact, critical and high findings first, with a complimentary retest to verify every fix.

28

Findings

1

Critical

5

High

Read the case study
LatentPerygeeCity National BankAubaDesteiaDTCC
Request a reference 

Resources

Field notes from the offensive side

All articles →

AWS Penetration Testing: Rules, Scope, Attack Paths and How to Prepare

AWS penetration testing explained: what AWS allows without approval, what is prohibited, the IAM, S3, Lambda and IMDS attack paths, and how to scope a test.

Azure Penetration Testing: Rules, Scope and Attack Paths

Azure penetration testing guide: Microsoft's rules of engagement, Entra ID and managed identity attack paths, Key Vault and storage exposure, and scoping.

GCP Penetration Testing: Google's Rules and Real Attack Paths

GCP penetration testing guide: Google's testing policy, IAM and service-account attack paths, the metadata server, GKE workload identity, and scoping.

Want to see a report first?

Read a sample report for a fictional client, or request a redacted one from a real engagement. Our guide explains what a penetration testing report should contain.

See the sample report

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What teams most often ask before scoping cloud penetration testing.

Still have questions? 
01What does a cloud penetration test cover?

We assess your AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud environment for the misconfigurations, over-privileged identities, and exposed services that let an attacker move from a small foothold to broad control, benchmarked against cloud security best practices.

02Is this the same as a cloud configuration review?

A configuration review checks settings against a benchmark. A penetration test goes further by chaining findings into real attack paths, showing how a misconfiguration actually leads to compromise rather than just flagging it. When the review is all you need, our read-only cloud security assessment covers one account from $4,200, with no exploitation.

03Do you need access to our cloud account?

For the most thorough results we recommend a scoped level of access so we can assess identity and configuration from the inside, but we can also test from an external attacker perspective. We agree the exact approach during scoping.

04Do we need AWS, Azure, or GCP approval to run a cloud penetration test?

For AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud you do not need to request pre-approval to test your own environment under their current customer-testing policies, provided you stay within your own resources and their acceptable-use rules. We confirm the current policy for your provider and keep testing within the agreed scope.

05How much does a cloud penetration test cost?

Cloud penetration tests start at $6,800, fixed before work begins, with a free retest of remediated findings included. Multi-account or multi-cloud environments are quoted after scoping. Starting prices for every service are on our pricing page.

06Do you test Kubernetes and container workloads?

Yes. Managed Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, GKE) and self-managed clusters are in scope alongside the cloud account itself. We test RBAC and service account privileges, exposed dashboards and control-plane components, secrets handling in images and environment variables, and the paths from a compromised pod to the node and the cloud identity behind it. A cluster tested on its own is our Kubernetes penetration testing service, one cluster from $6,800.

07Can you test with read-only credentials?

Yes, and it is a common starting point. Read-only access lets us enumerate identities, policies, storage, and network rules and build the attack paths an attacker would follow. Where you want the paths proven end to end, we agree a scoped set of test identities that mirror real roles. Either way, testing stays inside the accounts and rules of engagement you approve.

08Do you review Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code?

Yes. When infrastructure is defined in Terraform, CloudFormation, Bicep, or Pulumi, reviewing the code alongside the live environment finds misconfigurations before they deploy and explains why the ones we find in production keep coming back. It can be added to a cloud test or scoped as part of a secure code review.

09How long does a cloud penetration test take?

A single-account environment takes about a week of testing, then reporting, with critical findings shared the moment we confirm them. Multi-account, multi-cloud, or container-heavy estates take longer and are scheduled around your deadline. Onboarding begins within 24 hours of a signed proposal, and a free retest of remediated findings follows once your team ships the fixes.

Ready to test your defenses?

Talk to our team about scoping cloud penetration testing.

Prefer the full scoping questionnaire? 
RelatedCloud Assessment Kubernetes External Network Internal Network Microsoft 365 Web App Network Pentest

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