Cloud penetration testing is a manual, configuration- and identity-focused security assessment in which certified testers attack your AWS, Azure, or GCP environment the way a real adversary would - chaining IAM misconfigurations, exposed storage, over-permissioned roles, and weak control-plane settings into full account or data compromise. Unlike a one-click CSPM scan, CyberXplore's senior-led engagements combine authenticated review against the CIS Benchmarks with hands-on exploitation of privilege-escalation paths, then deliver prioritized, environment-specific remediation guidance and free retesting.
CIS BenchmarksMITRE ATT&CKPTESNIST
Why CyberXplore
Senior-only testers (OSCP, CRTP, CREST)
ISO 27001 & ISO 9001 certified
Free retest + attestation letter
Tailored scope and quote in 24 hours
Why it matters
The vast majority of cloud breaches stem from customer-side misconfiguration - exposed storage, over-permissioned IAM, and weak control-plane settings - not from the provider's infrastructure.
A single leaked access key or over-privileged role can let an attacker escalate from a low-value foothold to full account takeover across all your accounts and subscriptions.
CSPM and provider scanners flag known misconfigurations but cannot chain them into real attack paths or prove exploitability the way manual testing does.
Auditors, customers, and frameworks such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001 increasingly expect independent penetration-testing evidence for production cloud environments.
Aligned with industry standards: CIS Benchmarks · MITRE ATT&CK · PTES · NIST
Our methodology
01
Scoping & Threat Modeling
We agree on in-scope accounts, subscriptions, and projects, the provider mix (AWS/Azure/GCP), assumed-breach starting points, and rules of engagement aligned to provider testing policies.
02
Configuration & IAM Review
We assess the environment against the CIS Benchmarks and provider best practice - identity policies, trust relationships, logging, network exposure, encryption, and storage permissions.
03
Exploitation & Privilege Escalation
We safely exploit findings and chain them - abusing IAM policy gaps, role assumption, metadata services, and exposed buckets to escalate privileges and reach sensitive data.
04
Control-Plane & Lateral Movement
We pivot through the cloud control plane and connected services to demonstrate blast radius - cross-account access, key extraction, and data exfiltration paths.
05
Reporting
You receive a clear report with severity ratings, reproduction steps, attack-path diagrams, evidence, and platform-specific remediation guidance.
06
Remediation Support & Retest
We support your team through fixes and re-test every issue to confirm it is resolved - included free.
What we test
IAM users, roles, policies, trust relationships & privilege escalation paths
Detailed technical findings with CVSS severity and evidence
Cloud attack-path diagrams showing escalation and blast radius
Step-by-step reproduction for every finding
Prioritized, platform-specific remediation guidance mapped to CIS Benchmarks
Free retest with a remediation verification letter
Attestation letter for customers, auditors, and compliance
Sample deliverable
What you'll see in your report
Every engagement ends with a clear, prioritized report: severity-rated findings with CVSS scores, affected assets, and remediation status - plus a free retest. The figures below are illustrative.
Findings by severity
23 total
Critical
1
High
7
Medium
9
Low
6
Critical · CVSS 9.1CX-602
Public S3 bucket exposes customer data
CWE-732example-prod-assets (S3)Fixed
High · CVSS 8.2CX-608
Over-permissive IAM role (wildcard *:*)
CWE-269arn:aws:iam::role/app-execOpen
Illustrative cloud security assessment sample - anonymized to example.com.
High · CVSS 7.5CX-614
Long-lived access keys exposed in repo
CWE-798ci-deploy (IAM user)Retested
Want the full anonymized sample report? We'll include it with your quote.
Cumulative figures across our team's combined engagement history
Shared under NDA · details anonymized
“CyberXplore found critical issues three previous vendors missed. The report was the clearest we've ever received - our engineers fixed everything in a week, and the free retest confirmed every fix held.”
23 critical findings surfaced
HS
Head of Security
European SaaS platform · Series C · 450 employees
B2B SaaS
Shared under NDA · details anonymized
“Senior testers, fast turnaround, and a free retest that actually proved our fixes worked. They made our SOC 2 audit painless.”
SOC 2 passed first attempt
VE
VP of Engineering
Series B FinTech · Payments platform
FinTech
Certifications held by our testers
OSCP
CRTP
CREST
CEH
eWPTX
ISO 27001
ISO 9001
Frequently asked questions
For most common services, the major providers permit customer-authorized testing without prior approval, but specific activities (such as high-volume or stress testing) still require notification. We confirm the current provider policies during scoping and keep all testing within their rules of engagement.
