How to conduct an effective External Penetration Test for a hybrid cloud infrastructure?

All answers to this question.

Does your pentest scope include testing the API Gateway limits, or are you strictly looking at the network layer for this specific assessment?

   Answered 2025-01-05 by Thomas Wright

• Thomas, the scope absolutely includes the API layer. We’ve seen many instances where the network is hardened, but the API has "Broken Object Level Authorization" (BOLA) issues. I recommend using Postman or Burp Suite with the Autorize plugin to test if a low-privileged user can access data belonging to another user through manipulated ID parameters in the API calls.

     Commented 2025-01-12 by David Miller

I highly recommend using Nuclei for template-based scanning. It’s very fast and has a great community-driven list of templates for detecting recent cloud misconfigurations.

   Answered 2025-01-18 by Linda Robinson

• I agree, Linda. Nuclei is a staple in my toolkit now. It catches those "low-hanging fruit" vulnerabilities extremely efficiently, letting me focus on the manual exploitation of business logic.

     Commented 2025-01-25 by Marcus Reed

For a hybrid setup, reconnaissance is the most critical phase. Start by using Amass or Sublist3r for subdomain enumeration to find forgotten dev or staging environments that might point back to your on-prem IP space. To avoid WAF detection, use "low and slow" scanning techniques. Instead of a massive Nmap burst, use naabu for port scanning with randomized delays. In a 2023 engagement, we found that leveraging "Cloud-to-Cloud" traffic—running your scans from an AWS instance in the same region—sometimes bypasses certain aggressive geo-blocking rules. Also, don't forget to check for misconfigured S3 buckets and exposed .git directories, which are common entry points for lateral movement into the local network.

   Answered 2025-12-20 by Amanda Richardson