Serverless computing has taken businesses by storm. Lower costs, less manpower, and increased flexibility when it comes to this infrastructure are only part of the appeal.
The cloud has been the answer to adapting services to remote work and scaling business at a lower cost. It also enables them to deploy an app rapidly and manage it without a server.
However, while developers and organizations don’t have to invest in physical servers, they can’t entirely rely on just the provider of infrastructure for cybersecurity.
Service providers can guard the server and the infrastructure they lend to the app developer. But programmers still have to write the code for the app and any mistake or poorly written code can open up an organization to common attacks that affect said apps.
Also, as IT teams try to find and mitigate possible vulnerabilities in-house using traditional methods for app protection such as WAF or a regular Firewall, the system is likely to have gaps within its security.
While mentioned traditional tools can work for many threats that are recurring in the cloud environment, they often don’t cover all of the entry points that could be misused by hackers.
Which vulnerabilities and common attacks are the key parts of serverless security protection? What can businesses do about them, to prevent and mitigate those threats?
#1 Injection
OWASP has listed injection as the number one problem that serverless applications could encounter when securing the network.
In a serverless application, cybercriminals have even more access points to which they can inject malicious code. Increased attack surface now includes cloud storage, email notifications, or any changes in code.
Using injection, the attacker could get access to the container that contains sensitive information, reach cloud storage, or get permission to interact with the service.
Once the perpetrator is in the system, they can obtain or change the data internally or allow themselves access to restricted parts of the app.
Considering that within the serverless environments developers don’t have control over the server, they can’t install the WAF directly on it.
Some actions IT teams can take to prevent injection include:
- Having a safe API
- Allowing only trusted resources to the app
- Keeping in mind any possible event and entry point
#2 Broken Authentication
Compromised access to user’s accounts that can stem from broken authentication opens up a can of worms for any serverless app.
Weak designs of the controls that are in charge of identity and access can present a major security risk within the app that lacks the constant flow of traditional apps. The serverless apps rely on multiple containers within which the functions run separately from each other.
Attackers might send a spoofed email to try to exploit broken authentication in the app or attack the public cloud or unprotected APIs.
It can be challenging to have an overview of the infrastructure that’s divided into multiple silos with different functions and figure out which event triggered the authentication issues that allowed hackers access to the cloud.
How can you prevent broken authentication?
Rely on available solutions that allow the different levels of user authentication that are provided by the infrastructure itself.
Follow the best security practices that are known to strengthen authentication. For example, rely on Federated Identity, channels that are encrypted, and use client certificates and password managers.
#3 Exposure of Sensitive Data
When using an app, both users and team members tend to rely on one thing — that the data they share will be kept within the app and remain confidential.
In the case of a data leak, their sensitive information could result in identity theft or give the threat actor deeper access to the company’s systems.
The way hackers can get access to such data is similar to techniques they might use in traditional application infrastructures. For instance, they could rely on the Man in the Middle Attacks or find the stolen passwords online.
What can be done to secure sensitive data? You should start with:
- Knowing where the information is within a system at all times.
- Identifying it and differentiating it from other data that’s in the system.
- Avoiding frequent migrations of data from one part of the app to another.
#4 Use of Vulnerable Components
Outdated components that still contain old flaws which can be exploited by threat actors can create a vulnerability in the otherwise new app.
In order to prevent components from creating gaps in the security, keep tabs on the versions that are used in the app and frequently scan for vulnerabilities to patch them up on time.
#5 Zero-Day Attacks
Protecting the cloud environment from attacks that can’t be anticipated is quite challenging. Hackers can come up with novel ways to exploit vulnerabilities. Businesses won’t have the tool to mitigate such threats because their IT teams haven’t yet encountered them.
When seeking the security tools that protect servers, it’s important that it can detect unwanted activity and possible unauthorized access that is the result of new, more sophisticated attacks.
Final Word
Serverless applications are a recent development and we have yet to see new ways that they can be used to their full extent in the cloud environment. Before doing so, it’s important to protect the cloud infrastructure from common attacks that could compromise the network.
There are other cyberattacks and breach attempts that hit serverless applications. Some we haven’t mentioned include misconfiguration of the cloud, DDoS, and cross-site scripting. Also, there might be some vulnerabilities that we have yet to discover.
How can you protect cyber environments that rely on serverless computing?
Most app developers and organizations that use serverless technology can do so by employing the tools designed for security of serverless apps.
They should protect their assets from the top 10 threats for serverless apps as described in OWASP and mitigate zero-day attacks before they can damage the company.
