Cloud Security: The Risks Threatening Mexican Businesses

For many businesses, the cloud is becoming a patchwork of blind spots, and in that darkness, risks multiply.  Insights from Tenable's “2025 Cloud Security Risk Report” reveal the sobering reality of these blind spots: a significant portion of publicly accessible cloud storage still contains sensitive and confidential data. When combined with common misconfigurations and carelessly embedded secrets like passwords or API keys, these exposures create direct pathways for cybercriminals. For Mexico, which accounted for more than half of all cybercrime attempts in Latin America during the first half of 2024, this is not a peripheral concern. It’s a central risk to the nation’s digital economy.

Secrets in Plain Sight

One of the most alarming trends Tenable uncovered is the persistent presence of secrets, passwords, API keys, and credentials, stored directly in cloud infrastructure. These elements, often embedded for convenience, become potent attack vectors if exposed.

This isn’t a rare misstep. Many organizations using popular cloud services like AWS, GCP, and Azure are routinely leaving these “digital skeleton keys” in plain sight. Their presence reflects a normalization of insecure practices, where operational speed or convenience outweighs long-term risk mitigation.

The takeaway for security leaders is clear: secrets must be treated as high-value assets and handled with the same discipline as customer data or financial records.

A Toxic Cloud Trilogy 

One of the most persistent challenges in cloud security today is what might be described as a toxic cloud trilogy, workloads that are simultaneously publicly exposed, vulnerable to known exploits, and granted excessive permissions. On their own, each of these factors is risky, but together, they create a perfect storm for attackers.

These dangerous combinations often go unnoticed, not because they’re difficult to detect, but because responsibility for identifying them is fragmented. Cloud environments are complex ecosystems, and the teams managing them, security, DevOps, cloud engineering, often operate in silos. As a result, no single team has a complete view of how configuration, identity, and vulnerability intersect.

What’s needed is a more integrated approach to risk management in the cloud. Instead of treating these issues as isolated concerns, organizations must adopt a unified strategy that enables holistic visibility. That means connecting the dots between who has access, what’s exposed, and where vulnerabilities exist, then continuously assessing and prioritizing the combinations that present the greatest risk.

Without this cross-functional visibility, the cloud becomes a patchwork of blind spots. And in that darkness, risks multiply.

Identity is Not a Silver Bullet

It’s tempting to assume that implementing Identity Providers (IdPs) like AWS IAM or Azure AD solves the cloud access problem. And while most organizations are adopting these tools, Tenable’s research shows that identity-based risks persist due to excessive permissions, poorly managed defaults, and a lack of routine privilege audits.

Identity solutions are essential, but they are not enough on their own. Unless coupled with rigorous access reviews and least-privilege principles, they can create a false sense of security — and that’s dangerous.

A Call for Unified, Proactive Security

The path for attackers is often simple: exploit public access, steal embedded secrets or abuse overprivileged identities. These aren’t sophisticated, stealthy operations. They’re avoidable missteps that continue to plague even well-resourced organizations.

The best advice for defenders is equally straightforward: focus on visibility, automation, and risk prioritization. This is the foundation of effective cloud exposure management.

For Latin American organizations, especially those in Mexico, where cloud adoption is accelerating, the message is urgent. Cloud misconfigurations are not just an IT issue, they are a business risk with financial, operational, and reputational consequences.

But the good news is that these risks are manageable. With the right tools, practices, and mindset, organizations can identify and close the gaps before attackers find them. The cloud is not inherently insecure, it simply requires a security strategy that’s as dynamic as the environments it powers.