CLOUD VILLAGE @ DEF CON 33 8th Aug - 10th Aug 2025

Cloud Village is an open space to meet folks interested in offensive and defensive aspects of cloud security.

ABOUT

Cloud village is an open space to meet folks interested in offensive and defensive aspects of cloud security. The village is home to various activities like talks, workshops, CTFs and discussions targeted around cloud services.

If you are a professional who is looking to gain knowledge on securely maintaining the cloud stack and loves to be around like-minded security folks who share the similar zeal towards the community, Cloud Village is the perfect place for you.

Cloud Village will be in-person at DEF CON 33, Las Vegas Convention Center from 8th August to 10th August 2025

Hope to see you all there!

Speaker Schedule

💡Talks: 18 | ⚡ Lightning Talks: 2 | 🔨 Tool Demo: 8

10:00 - 10:10

Opening Note

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Abstract

Kickoff to the DEF CON33 journey

10:10 - 10:50

💡 Talk: Karl Fosaaen and Thomas Elling: We Know What You Did (in Azure) Last Summer

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Abstract

How much do you trust your cloud provider to hide the ownership information for your resources? Many organizations believe that their ownership information for cloud hosted resources is not available to anonymous users. Unless there's an associated DNS record or other obvious identifiers (website content, SSL certificates, etc.), it might seem difficult to anonymously identify a cloud resource’s owner. What if we told you that some of your Azure resources can expose their ownership information?

This talk will explain how multiple Azure resource types (and Microsoft services) inadvertently expose their ownership information, allowing attackers to enumerate potential entry points into an Azure tenant. Thanks to the supporting structure of Azure resource subdomains, and public DNS data sources, we enumerated the ownership information of over 500,000 Azure resources.

We will wrap things up by sharing a new tool (ATEAM - Azure Tenant Enumeration and Attribution Module) that can be used to replicate our research, so you too can find out where all of your Azure resources have been hiding.

About The Speaker

As a VP of Research, Karl is part of a team developing new services and product offerings at NetSPI. Karl previously oversaw the Cloud Penetration Testing service lines at NetSPI and is one of the founding members of NetSPI’s Portland, OR team. Karl has a Bachelors of Computer Science from the University of Minnesota and has been in the security consulting industry for over 15 years. Karl spends most of his research time focusing on Azure security and contributing to the NetSPI blog. As part of this research, Karl created the MicroBurst toolkit to house many of the PowerShell tools that he uses for testing Azure. In 2021, Karl co-authored the book “Penetration Testing Azure for Ethical Hackers” with David Okeyode.

10:50 - 11:30

💡 Talk: Yakir Kadkoda:
The Hidden Path to Root: Shadow Resources, Roles, and AWS Service Exploits

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Abstract

Cloud environments are vast, complex, and often opaque—even to their owners. In this talk, we expose how AWS’s design decisions around default service roles and resource naming patterns have created hidden privilege escalation paths that could lead to full AWS account takeover.

We begin by introducing the concept of Shadow Resources—S3 buckets automatically relied upon by internal AWS services, which users don’t create or control directly but are referenced implicitly. We show how attackers could preemptively claim these buckets in unused regions using predictable naming conventions (like aws-glue-assets-{AccountID}-{Region}), planting malicious content or intercepting trusted workflows. This silent hijacking technique breaks the assumed isolation between services and accounts.

From there, we pivot to Shadow Roles—default IAM roles created or recommended by AWS services such as SageMaker, Glue, and EMR. These roles often come with dangerously over-permissive policies (e.g., AmazonS3FullAccess). With these roles in place, any compromised service becomes a launchpad: we demonstrate how importing a single malicious Hugging Face model into SageMaker enables an attacker to silently backdoor Glue jobs across the entire account by tampering with trusted S3.

Finally, we share findings from our AWS Glue research, where we discovered a local privilege escalation path within the container environment of Glue. We also provide insights into potential detection strategies, demonstrating how the managed runtime can become an unexpected vector for both privilege escalation and cross-tenant exposure.

This layered attack path—from Shadow Resources to Shadow Roles—demonstrates a critical but overlooked risk in cloud architecture.

In this talk, we’ll share how our investigation began with a single misconfigured resource and evolved into a broader exploration of AWS's service trust model. We’ll walk through the methodology that helped us uncover these vulnerabilities and highlight how each discovery opened the door to the next—using specific privilege escalation techniques to chain across services and amplify impact.
Expect a technical deep dive, real-world attack flows, and a new lens on how seemingly isolated misconfigurations can lead to complete compromise.

About The Speaker

Yakir Kadkoda is the Director of Security Research at Aqua’s research team, Team Nautilus. He specializes in vulnerability research, uncovering and analyzing emerging security threats and attack vectors in cloud-native environments, supply chain security, and open-source projects. Before joining Aqua, Yakir worked as a red teamer. He has presented his cybersecurity research at leading industry conferences, including Black Hat (USA, EU, Asia), DEF CON, RSAC, SecTor, CloudNativeSecurityCon, STACK, INTENT, and more

11:30 - 12:10

💡 Talk: JC (Crashwire) and Nathan:
Hypervisor Hangover: Persistence Mechanisms on ESXi

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Abstract

As FIN groups continue to execute fast-impact ransomware campaigns, Nation-State APT's prefer long-term infrastructure control, and in both instances: hypervisors have become the new high ground. This talk will explore a set of stealthy and reliable persistence techniques targeting VMware ESXi, developed and refined through our hands-on research and real-world incident analysis.

I’ll break down five practical persistence mechanisms that allow adversaries to remain resident in virtualized environments (even through reboots, patching cycles, and partial remediation efforts). These include:

• Payload injection via local.sh and profile.local

• Malicious services in /etc/init.d

• Symlink hijacking of trusted binaries (like esxcli)

• Custom VIB (vSphere Installation Bundle) creation and implantation

While some of these techniques have been observed in malware families like BadVIBes, VIRTUALPITA, and VIRTUALPIE, a couple others represent novel techniques we’ve weaponized in our lab environments but remain largely unobserved in the wild. Every approach is designed to leverage Living-off-the-Land (LOTL) native binaries and config paths, turning ESXi’s minimalism into an attacker’s advantage.

This talk will walk through each method with technical depth, LOTL payload examples, and visual demonstrations. I’ll also explore follow-on actions post-compromise such as ESXi firewall manipulation/DNS reconfiguration to facilitate stable C2 channels.

If you're responsible for red team ops, adversary emulation, or just curious how attackers achieve deep infrastructure persistence, this session will show you a few different ways to persist beneath the hypervisor.

About The Speaker

JC is a Cyber Threat Analyst at a cybersecurity startup and a former U.S. Air Force Special Warfare operator. He focuses in studying and modeling adversary tradecraft, internal network and hypervisor exploitation, and researching stealthy persistence techniques. A regular CTF competitor and recent contributor to the MITRE ATT&CK v17 framework, he brings a mission-focused approach to red team research and offensive security

12:10 - 12:30

⚡ Lightning Talk: Danielle Aminov & Yaara Shriki:
Auths Gone Wild: When ‘Authenticated’ Means Anyone

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Abstract

“Public access - off” should mean safe, right? Not when a wildcard principal sneaks into Terraform or a quick-start template letting any logged-in account (yours, mine, or a stranger’s) access your sensitive data.

We ran a large-scale, cross-cloud hunt for this quiet misconfiguration, testing it in AWS, Azure and GCP and measuring how often it shows up in real environments. The flaw is sneaky: anonymous requests are getting blocked, yet any authenticated account can still perform actions such as list, get, or even put objects - so a quick browser check tricks you into thinking the bucket is private. Our data shows that more than 15% of cloud environments had at least one bucket publicly exposing sensitive data. As for the remaining 85%, “not public” doesn’t always mean private. Further analysis revealed that many of these supposedly restricted buckets still exposed sensitive information unintentionally, including configuration files, code, and AI models.

In this talk we’ll outline our scan approach, present the headline numbers and walk through our methodology for detecting risky buckets.

About The Speaker

Danielle Aminov is a part of Wiz’s threat research team, specializing in network-based threats and threat intelligence. She develops detection strategies for large cloud environments. With over six years in offensive security within the IDF and in the cyber department of a global consulting firm, Danielle has expertise in red team operations and penetration testing.

12:30 - 13:00

🔨 Tool Demo: Raunak Parmar:
AzDevRecon - Azure DevOps Enumeration Tool

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Abstract

AzDevRecon is a powerful web-based enumeration tool designed for offensive security professionals, red teamers, and penetration testers targeting Azure DevOps. It streamlines the discovery of misconfigurations, exposed secrets, and security gaps by leveraging token-based authentication, including Personal Access Tokens (PAT) and Azure DevOps Access Tokens (with aud=499b84ac-1321-427f-aa17-267ca6975798). AzDevRecon automates project and repository discovery, pipeline analysis, and user permission mapping, helping security teams uncover escalation paths and hardcoded credentials. Its intuitive web-based interface simplifies complex reconnaissance, enabling faster and more effective security assessments of Azure DevOps environments. This presentation will demonstrate how AzDevRecon enhances offensive security capabilities, providing actionable insights to strengthen DevOps security postures.

Features:

- Token-Based Enumeration – Extract insights using Azure DevOps Access tokens or PAT.

- Project & Repository Discovery – Identify accessible projects and repositories.

- Pipeline & Build Enumeration – Analyze Azure Pipelines for security flaws.

- Secrets & Credential Hunting – Detect hardcoded secrets and exposed tokens.

- User & Permission Analysis – Map roles, permissions, and escalation paths.

- Web-Based UI – Easy-to-use interface for efficient enumeration.

About The Speaker

Raunak Parmar works as a senior cloud security engineer at White Knight Labs. His areas of interest include web penetration testing, Azure/AWS security, source code review, scripting, and development. He has 4+ years of experience in information security. He enjoys researching new attack methodologies and creating open-source tools that can be used during cloud red team activities. He has worked extensively on Azure and AWS and is the author of Vajra, an offensive cloud security tool. He has spoken at multiple respected security conferences like Black Hat, Defcon RTV, MCTTP, HackSpaceCon, RootCon, and also at local meetups.

13:00 - 13:35

💡 Talk: David Melamed:
No Server, No Cry: the Ups and Downs of Building a Scalable Security Serverless Platform

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Abstract

In this engaging talk, we will embark on a journey through the trials and triumphs of constructing a 100% serverless, scalable security platform. Starting about 2 years ago when we bootstrapped Jit, we will share all the lessons we have learned along the way to build our platform - both in terms of people and technology.

As we venture into the land of serverless architecture, we will discuss its power but also confront the myth that less hardware equates to fewer headaches. Spoiler alert: it doesn't, but the lessons learned are invaluable. Takeaways: Serverless has become an excellent way to ramp up infrastructure operations for cloud first companies. However, this comes with its own set of security challenges, including the popular OWASP Top 10. In this talk, we will dive into what it takes to build a real world secure and scalable serverless platform for your engineering.

About The Speaker

Currently CTO and Co-Founder of Jit, the Continuous Security platform for Developers. David has a PhD in Bioinformatics and for the past 20 years has been a full-stack developer, CTO & technical evangelist, mostly in the cloud, and specifically in cloud security, working for leading organizations such as MyHeritage, CloudLock (acquired by Cisco) and leading the 'advanced development team' for the CTO of Cisco's cloud security (a $500M ARR BU).
David is also the co-chair for the OWASP Serverless Security Top 10, and an AWS Community Builder.

13:35 - 14:10

💡 Talk: Ariel Kalman:
No IP, No Problem: Exfiltrating Data Behind IAP

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Abstract

Google Cloud’s Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) is often seen as the final gatekeeper for internal GCP services - but what happens when that gate quietly swings open? This session uncovers how subtle misconfigurations in IAP can lead to serious data exposure, even in environments with no public IPs, strict VPC Service Controls, and hardened perimeters. We’ll introduce a new vulnerability in IAP that enables data exfiltration, allowing attackers to bypass traditional network controls entirely, without ever sending traffic to the public internet. In addition, we’ll walk through real-world examples of overly permissive IAM bindings, misplaced trust in user-supplied headers, and overlooked endpoints that quietly expand the attack surface. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of IAP’s internal workings, practical detection strategies, and a critical perspective on trust boundaries in GCP.

Description:

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This talk delivers a technical dive into Google Cloud’s IAP, a service widely used to enforce access controls on internal applications - and often assumed to be foolproof. We begin with a concise overview of how IAP works behind the scenes, including its identity enforcement model and how it integrates with IAM and backend services.

The core focus is on teaching defenders how these misconfigurations manifest in logs once an attacker begins to exploit them, equipping them to build effective detections and stop breaches before they escalate. Whether it’s during the initial configuration tampering or while actively bypassing controls, I’ll walk through what those activities actually look like in GCP logs. For each misconfiguration, I’ll present real log snippets, unpack the most revealing details, and show how to correlate signals, even those outside of IAP-specific logs, to detect and investigate IAP abuse effectively.

The highlight of the session is a new research technique we've developed: exploiting IAP's CORS behavior to exfiltrate sensitive data using preflight OPTIONS requests, effectively bypassing traditional network egress controls. This method can succeed even in highly restricted environments with no internet access, no public IPs, and VPC Service Controls fully enforced. The issue has been responsibly disclosed to Google and is currently under review, with an expected review timeline of 30 days.

We’re sharing this research to highlight just how fragile IAP configurations can be, where even a minor misstep or overlooked setting can unintentionally expose internal resources to the internet. Alongside the technique, we’ll provide practical detection strategies to help defenders identify this specific attack vector through GCP’s logging infrastructure.

We’ll wrap up with detection strategies using GCP logs to identify abuse patterns, surface subtle signs of exploitation, and improve monitoring around one of GCP’s most sensitive gateways.

About The Speaker

Ariel Kalman is a cloud security researcher based in Israel, actively engaged in cloud-related security research at Mitiga. With a specialization in application security, Ariel excels in discovering new attack vectors associated to cloud environment

14:10 - 14:40

🔨 Tool Demo: Filipi Pires:
Transforming Identity Protection: Innovating with AI and Attack Paths

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Abstract

Transforming Identity Protection: Innovating with AI and Attack PathsIn this session, we will explore the innovative integration of Generative AI with graph-based visualization to redefine cloud security strategies. Attendees will discover how attackers exploit misconfigurations in major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI, gaining insights into the evolving threat landscape. Utilizing cutting-edge AI models, we’ll unveil how generative algorithms can predict potential misconfigurations and proactively identify attack paths.

The core of our discussion focuses on leveraging open-source tools such as neo4j and Memgraph to visualize these paths, providing a dynamic map of vulnerabilities. We'll demonstrate AI-driven solutions for crafting tailored mitigation strategies, ensuring a robust defense across cloud ecosystems. Through real-world case studies, attendees will witness the transformative impact of combining Gen AI with strategic prevention techniques.

By the presentation's end, participants will be empowered with the knowledge and tools to implement proactive security measures, effectively mitigating risks and enhancing the security posture of their cloud infrastructures. This innovative approach positions cloud security professionals at the forefront of defense against sophisticated cyber threats.

About The Speaker

Working as Head of Identity Threat Labs and Global Product Advocate at Segura®, Red Team Village Director, Founder at Black&White Technology, AWS Community Builder, Cybersecurity Advocate, Snyk Ambassador, Application Security Specialist and Hacking is NOT a crime Advocate. International Speaker at Security and New technologies events in many countries such as US (Black Hat & Defcon), Canada, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Black Hat MEA - Middle-East - and others, I’ve served as University Professor in Graduation and MBA courses at Brazilian colleges, in addition, I'm Creator and Instructor of the Course - Malware Attack Types with Kill Chain Methodology (PentestMagazine), PowerShell and Windows for Red Teamers(PentestMagazine) and Malware Analysis - Fundamentals (HackerSec).

14:40 - 15:20

💡 Talk: Alon Klayman and Eliraz Levi:
Identity Crisis: The Unmanaged World of Azure Managed Identities

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Abstract

Last year, both of us (Eliraz and Alon) participated DEF CON, and the Cloud Village was our favorite. One of the topics that was well covered in last's year conference was the threat of Azure Managed Identities abuse. While many offensive aspects related to it were covered as part of DEFCON, and different articles and talks over the past year, the defensive aspects of it remained uncovered.
This year we want to visit the cloud village again, this time sharing our research of the last 4 months, in which we will fill in this significant defensive gap to complement last year's talks, by focusing on proactive threat-hunting techniques to identify and address Azure MI abuse. By examining common attack vectors and presenting advanced detection strategies, we aim to bridge the visibility gap and equip security teams with practical tools for forensic investigation and real-time monitoring using diverse Microsoft log sources.

We aim to empower participants with advanced strategies for leveraging Microsoft log sources, providing practical knowledge and detailed examples that span both real-time monitoring and forensic investigation. This talk is grounded in comprehensive research we’ve conducted over the past few months, during which we simulated various MI abuse scenarios and analyzed relevant logs and detection opportunities across dozens of enterprise environments.
We’ve already released the first 2 parts of our research series, the first part in which we explore the blast radius of a compromised Managed Identity and the significance of NHIs (Non-Human Identities) in the broader cloud threat landscape, and the second one in which we covered threat hunting, investigation techniques, and forensic analysis of such incidents. In this talk, we will cover this and more!
Attendees will leave this session equipped with key takeaways that will help them immediately recognize and respond to incidents involving compromised Managed Identities. They’ll learn how to quickly determine if an MI was involved, assess its blast radius, correlate activity across five or more Azure log sources, and use Azure-specific forensic artifacts to speed up containment and remediation.
And this isn’t just for incident response teams - SOC analysts and detection engineers will gain tools and techniques for building targeted detections that bring MI-based threats into visibility. Offensive security professionals will benefit too, gaining a clearer understanding of how MIs can be abused to move laterally across Azure subscriptions, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, and even hybrid environments.

Links to our published research docs:
1. Part 1 - Azure Managed Identities internals and blast radius - https://www.hunters.security/en/blog/abusing-azure-managed-identities-nhi-attack-paths
2. Part 2 - Azure Defense - detection, hunting, and DFIR - https://www.hunters.security/en/blog/azure-managed-identity-threat-hunting-detection-methods

About The Speaker

Alon is a seasoned Security Researcher with nearly a decade of expertise in cybersecurity and IT, specializing in cloud security, threat research, incident response, and threat hunting. With a strong focus on Azure attacks, he authored The Human-Friendly Guide: Incident Response & Threat Hunting in Azure Cloud. Currently serving as the Security Research Tech Lead at Hunters’ Team AXON, Alon has also held key roles as a DFIR Team Leader, pentester, and cybersecurity consultant. His extensive credentials include certifications such as GCFA, GNFA, CARTP, CESP, and CRTP.

Eliraz is a Security researcher, with 16 years of experience. Eliraz’s core expertise includes detection engineering, IR, and forensics. He’s worked on large-scale incidents, including ransom, data theft, and financial frauds. Furthermore, he’s collaborated with global enterprises on reinforcing security infrastructure, tuning hunting operations, and mentoring SOC analysts.

15:20 - 15:50

💡 Talk: Mark Manning:
Command and KubeCTL: Kubernetes Security for Pentesters and Defenders

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Abstract

Kubernetes is a security challenge that many organizations need to take on, and we as pentesters, developers, security practitioners, and the technically curious need to adapt to these challenges. In this talk we will look at tactics, techniques, and tools to assess and exploit Kubernetes clusters. We will demonstrate how to intercept service mesh traffic, evade runtime syscall filters, exploit custom sidecars, and chain attacks that go from compromising a build environment, to exploiting production applications. We’ll cover real world attack paths, provide practical advice, and guidance using the experience of conducting hundreds of reviews of containerized environments while running NCC Group’s container research group.

About The Speaker

Mark Manning (@antitree) has experience running a container security research practice as a penetration tester and working in a product security org building a Kubernetes service for thousands of customers. He has been focused on containerization and orchestration technologies like Kubernetes and performs containerization and sandboxing assessments and research. This includes running container breakouts and attack simulations on orchestration environments, performing architecture reviews of devops pipelines, and working with developers to assist with applications that leverage containerization technologies like namespace isolation, Linux kernel controls, syscall filtering, gVisor, and integration with products like Docker and Kubernetes.

15:50 - 16:30

💡 Talk: Marios Gyftos & Nikos Vourdas:
May the Least Privilege Be With You: Exposing the Dark Side of Azure Service Principal Permissions

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Abstract

In every modern Azure environment, Service Principals drive automation and integration. Yet, to support enterprise solutions in identity governance, cloud security, and DevOps automation, these principals are often endowed with broad Microsoft Graph API permissions—such as RoleManagement.ReadWrite.Directory, Application.ReadWrite.All, AppRoleAssignment.ReadWrite.All, and ServicePrincipalEndpoint.ReadWrite.All. Even Entra ID roles that are not typically classified as “privileged” can be exploited, enabling attackers to modify Service Principal configurations and escalate privileges in unexpected ways.
This session reveals groundbreaking research that uncovers how excessive Graph API permissions and the abuse of non‑privileged Entra ID roles create new exploitation pathways in Azure. We will detail common misconfigurations that, when left unmonitored, allow attackers to seize control of Service Principals and manipulate application configurations. In doing so, we introduce Azure AppHunter—a novel open‑source tool that scans Azure environments for Service Principals with dangerous permissions and maps out potential attack vectors.
Attendees will gain practical techniques for detecting and mitigating these vulnerabilities, enforce least privilege, and integrate continuous auditing into their security workflows—all essential for securing Azure deployments against emerging threats.

About The Speaker

Marios has been working on the Cyber Security field since 2017, started his career focusing on web application penetration testing but then continued on focusing more on cloud penetration testing including AWS, GCP and Azure. On his free times he enjoys playing basketball and chess.

Nikos Vourdas, also known as nickvourd or NCV, is a Senior Offensive Security Consultant based in the US. With over four years of professional experience, he has actively participated in various global Tiber-EU and iCAST Red Teaming engagements. Regardless of his young age, Nikos has conducted full Red Teaming operations to major clients across retail, banking, shipping, construction industries. He holds OSWE, OSEP, OSCP, OSWP, CRTL and CRTO certifications. Nikos loves contributing to open-source projects and always starts his day at 05:00 AM with a refreshing jog while listening to Chinese rap music.

10:00 - 10:30

🔨 Tool Demo: Madhu Akula:
Spotter – Universal Kubernetes Security Engine

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Abstract

Spotter is a groundbreaking open-source tool or solution designed to secure Kubernetes clusters throughout their lifecycle. Built on the native tooling of Kubernetes by leveraging CEL (Common Expression Language) for policy definitions, we can define unified security scanning across development, CLI, CI/CD, Admission Controllers, deployments, runtime, and continuous monitoring. Its unique approach enables both enforcement and monitoring modes, ensuring that policies can be applied consistently and mapped directly to industry standards such as CIS, MITRE ATT&CK, etc.

Spotter provides extreamly high flexbility across all Kubernetes phases, providing an innovative approach that no other open-source or commercial solution can replicate. It seamlessly bridges security, DevOps, and platform teams, effectively solving the real-world challenges faced by day-to-day operations.

About The Speaker

Madhu Akula is a pragmatic security leader and creator of Kubernetes Goat, an intentionally vulnerable by-design Kubernetes Cluster to learn and practice Kubernetes Security. He is a published author and Cloud Native Security Architect with extensive experience. Also, he is an active member of the international security, DevOps, and Cloud Native communities (null, DevSecOps, AllDayDevOps, AWS, CNCF, USENIX, etc). He holds industry certifications like CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), CKS (Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist), OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional), etc.

Madhu frequently speaks and runs training sessions at security events and conferences worldwide including DEFCON 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 & 32, BlackHat USA, ASIA, EU (2018, 19, 21, 22, 23 & 24), USENIX LISA 2018, 19 & 21, SANS Cloud Security Summit 2021 & 2022, O’Reilly Velocity EU 2019, Github Satellite 2020, Appsec EU (2018, 19 & 22), All Day DevOps (2016, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23), DevSecCon (London, Singapore, Boston), DevOpsDays India, c0c0n(2017, 18), Nullcon 2018, 19, 21 & 22, SACON, Serverless Summit, null and multiple others.

His research has identified vulnerabilities in over 200+ companies and organizations including; Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, eBay, AT&T, WordPress, NTOP, Adobe, etc. and is credited with multiple CVEs, Acknowledgements, and rewards. He is co-author of Security Automation with Ansible2 (ISBN-13: 978-1788394512), which is listed as a technical resource by Red Hat Ansible. He is the technical reviewer for Learn Kubernetes Security, and Practical Ansible2 books by Packt Pub. Also won 1st prize for building an Infrastructure Security Monitoring solution at InMobi flagship hackathon among 100+ engineering teams.

10:30 - 11:10

💡 Talk: Viktor Gazdag:
Exploring The Possibilities of Azure Fabric Abuses

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Abstract

Big data, big mess. Bigger and more data is in Fabric, the more messy it can be. Azure unified the data lake house, data warehouse and PowerBI services into a SaaS platform called Fabric. In this talk, we discuss the three areas in the tenant level settings to look after and not to open up Fabric to everything. Then we will discuss data exfiltration scenarios (like data pipeline or notebook etc), how is it possible to create backdoor account (i.e.: Activator).

Intro - 1min

Who am I and what is Fabric.

Tenant Level Settings to Review - 4mins

Selecting the top 3 tenant level areas (External Data Sharing, Admin API calls, Information Protection) to review why they can be dangerous.

Data Exfiltration via Data Pipeline, Notebook, Shortcut, SQL Endpoint, Mirrored Db - 12mins

Discussing the possibilities of how data pipeline can automatically copy data from our own tenant's source to a destination in a different tenant. SQL Endpoint is automatically created for reading purposes. Guest account in Entra ID can be added to the workspace as viewer and using SQL Server Management Studio (SSM) to open SQL analytics endpoint. Mirrored Database is automatically synchronize data between 2 database where the destination can be an external tenant. A notebook is all about executing code and handling existing data (handing out the data).

Demo video about a pipeline copy to another tenant storage account.

Backdoor via Activator (Notebook, Power Automate, Scheduled Spark Job) - 13mins

Discussing how the Activator can be used to create a backdoor user via executing python code via Notebook, Scheduled Spark Job or low-code Power Automate.

Demo video (8mins) demonstrating how a backdoor account is created by using Activator to run a Notebook which executes Azure Python SDK code.

About The Speaker

Viktor Gazdag has worked as pentester and security consultant for 9 years, lead cloud research working group and M365 capability service. He has reported numerous vulnerabilities in products and plugins from companies such as Oracle, SAP, Atlassian, Jenkins, CloudBees Jenkins, JetBrains, Sonatype. He gave talks about CI/CD and Cloud security at DevOps World, Black Hat USA, DefCon and DoD CyberDT XSWG. He holds multiple AWS/Azure/GCP, Infra as Code, DevOps and Hacking certs and Jenkins Security MVP award.

11:10 - 11:50

💡 Talk: Shani Peled:
Weaponizing SageMaker AI: Real-World Offense in Machine Learning Platforms

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Abstract

Get ready for a live demo of full-blown cloud compromise - starting from an innocent-looking SageMaker AI notebook and ending in complete AWS account takeover. Using nothing more than the default SageMaker AI setup granted to data scientists, this session showcases how attackers can chain together misconfigurations across IAM, SecretsManager, ECR, and network layers to take control of the environment from the inside out.

But that’s just the beginning.

This talk also features the exclusive release of a new open source tool- the first offensive framework built to simulate and execute post-exploitation in SageMaker AI environments. Red teams can weaponize it. Defenders can validate exposures. Either way, it shines a spotlight on one of the cloud’s most overlooked attack surfaces: managed AI infrastructure.

Drawing on real-world experience from offensive operations against cloud environments around the world - including enterprise and nation-level targets - this session breaks down how AI services like SageMaker AI are quietly becoming powerful post-exploitation platforms.

SageMaker AI was designed to train models, not attackers - but with its comfort-first design, permissive defaults, and excessive trust relationships, it quietly offers everything needed for stealthy lateral movement and infrastructure-wide compromise.

This talk is for red teamers, defenders, and anyone building or securing ML workloads in the cloud. Expect real attack chains, real tools, and a view into how attackers are targeting AI infrastructure in the wild - and why most environments aren't ready for it.

About The Speaker

Shani Peled is a Senior Cloud Security Researcher at SentinelOne. She began her career in the Israeli Intelligence Corps, where she served as the only female hacker on her cyber defense team. After two years defending critical infrastructure, she transitioned into offensive security, spending four years as a red teamer targeting enterprise environments around the world — including multiple Fortune 500, Fortune 100, and Fortune 50 companies. Today, she brings that offensive mindset to cloud and AI research, focusing on exposing real-world threats in modern cloud infrastructure.

11:50 - 12:15

⚡ Lightning Talk: Ryan O'Donnell:
Sweet Deception: Deploying Honeypots and Honey Tokens in Microsoft 365

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Abstract

Traditional detection methods struggle to keep pace with evolving attacker tactics in cloud environments like Microsoft 365. To level the playing field, organizations can implement honeypots and honey tokens strategically within their M365 infrastructure, turning the complexity of cloud services to their advantage. By creating deliberately enticing yet closely monitored decoys, defenders can proactively detect attacker reconnaissance and exploitation attempts.

This session outlines effective strategies for deploying M365 honeypots and honey tokens, emphasizing low false-positive rates and high data quality. Leveraging Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and Application-specific tokens, attendees will learn to craft attractive, attacker-oriented traps integrated seamlessly into their security monitoring pipelines. Advanced deception techniques, including breadcrumb trails leading adversaries into highly monitored secondary environments, will also be discussed.

Through live demonstrations, participants will gain valuable insights into how deception techniques can be applied within Microsoft 365 environments. They will learn how to design and implement these strategies in their own environments to strengthen detection capabilities against sophisticated adversaries.

This presentation is the culmination of extensive hands-on research and practical application in both penetration testing and defensive detection engineering. By leveraging actual techniques observed in real-world attacks, this talk bridges offensive innovation with proactive defensive strategies. Attendees will receive detailed methodologies to effectively set up, deploy, and monitor M365-specific honeypots.

About The Speaker

Ryan O'Donnell is a Senior Offensive Security Engineer at Microsoft. Over the last 13+ years, he's been performing Penetration Tests, Red Team assessments, and Incident Response investigations. Ryan has conducted hands-on workshops at Hack Space Con, Hack Red Con, BSides Las Vegas, and BSides NoVa. Ryan has a Masters in Cybersecurity from GMU and the following certifications: OSCP, OSEP, CRTO, and GREM.

12:15 - 12:55

💡 Talk: Gowthamaraj Rajendran:
Building the Cross-Cloud Kill Chain: A DE's Playbook for AWS, Azure & GCP Detections

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Abstract

Trying to trace an attacker pivoting from AWS to Azure to GCP often feels like building detections in silos while attackers exploit the seams. As detection engineers (DEs), we know the pain: scattered logic, cloud-specific alerts, and a fragmented view. We need to move beyond individual events and reconstruct the cross-cloud kill chain to see the full attack.

This DEF CON Lightning Talk is a practical DE playbook for AWS, Azure, and GCP. No fluff, just 'how-to' for building detections that connect the dots across clouds.

In ~15 minutes, we’ll cover:

Cross-Cloud TTPs: How attackers really pivot between AWS, Azure & GCP in 2025 and the patterns they leave.

Mapping Logs to Kills: Identifying essential logs (CloudTrail, Azure AD, GCP Audit, etc.) and mapping them to attack stages.

Crafting Correlation Rules: Real SIEM examples (Sentinel/Chronicle/etc.) for stitching events together – think 'Azure Risky Login' + 'AWS Role Use' = P1 Alert.

Actionable DE Strategies: Threat intel integration, baselining cross-cloud activity, and building high-fidelity alerts.

Automation & OCSF: Streamlining ingestion and normalization so you can focus on the hunt.

If you write detection rules or hunt threats in a multi-cloud mess, this is for you. You'll leave with actionable TTPs, correlation logic examples, and a clear path to building detections that reveal the entire cross-cloud kill chain. Let's build better traps.

About The Speaker

Gowthamaraj Rajendran is a cybersecurity professional and Threat Detection Engineer at Meta, with over 4 years of experience. For the past 2 years, he has specialized in creating precise and effective detection capabilities.

12:55 - 13:25

🔨 Tool Demo: Nevada Romsdahl & Kam Talebzadeh:
SquarePhish 2.0 - Turning QR Codes into Entra ID Primary Refresh Tokens

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Abstract

SquarePhish 2.0 - Turning QRCodes into Single Sign On Primary Refresh Tokens
Introduction to Device Code Phishing
- Evolution of phishing techniques and their current relevance
- Recent increase in threat actor adoption
- Overview of advancements in token exploitation techniques
OAuth Authentication Fundamentals
- OAuth 2.0 authorization framework overview
- Device code flow explanation and legitimate use cases
- Access tokens vs. refresh tokens: purpose and security implications
QR Codes in Phishing Attacks
- How QR codes facilitate social engineering
- Advantages over traditional phishing links
- User psychology and trust in QR authentication processes
Microsoft Entra ID Token Ecosystem
- Family of Client ID (FOCI) explanation
- Primary Refresh Tokens (PRTs): the ultimate persistence goal
- Token relationships and privilege escalation paths
SquarePhish Tool Demo
- Architecture and components overview
- Decoupling initial contact from authentication flow
- Overcoming the 15-minute timeout limitation
- Two-phase email approach
- Demonstration of the email and server modules
- Configuration and customization options
New SquarePhish Techniques
- Broker authentication client phishing implementation and template
- Automatic registration of Primary Refresh Tokens
Detection and Prevention Strategies
- Detection via logging and SIEM rules
- Conditional Access policies to mitigate device code attacks
- Disable device code flow
- User awareness training specific to QR phishing

About The Speaker

Throughout his career in information security, Nevada has experience in various roles, including security analyst, security architect, penetration tester, and security researcher. He is currently a Senior Security Researcher on the NG-SIEM Threat Research team at CrowdStrike.

13:25 - 14:05

💡 Talk: Gautam Peri:
Uncovering Hidden Threats: The Risks of Dangling Issuers in Federated Credentials

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Abstract

Federated Credentials are one of the ways to authenticate workload identities and provide access to resources using Open ID Connect (OIDC), and major identity providers such as Entra ID (formerly known as Azure AD) support authentication using federated credentials. Developers set up a trust relationship between federated identity providers and workload identities. Often times due to a misconfiguration or lack of understanding of federated credentials security risks, developers have dangling domains configured as issuer in the setup. Due to the inherent trust relationship configured with the federated identity provider, an attacker can take over the dangling issuer domain, host OIDC discovery endpoints and obtain access tokens to elevate privileges.

This talk aims to highlight the risks of dangling issuers and demonstrates how an attacker can exploit them to elevate privileges. In addition, the talk also covers mitigations and best practices and provides tools to identify these misconfigurations. The demos used in this session leverage Microsoft Entra ID as the identity provider and Azure as the cloud hosting platform. However, the key takeaways are generic and are applicable to other cloud environments and identity providers.

Key concepts covered in the talk are as follows:
Introduction
Speaker intro
Overview of federated credentials in Entra ID (Azure AD) & other identity providers
Federated Credentials 101 in Entra Id (Azure AD)
Legitimate use case:
Federated credentials setup
How do workload identities authenticate with federated credentials?

Dangling Issuers in federated credentials
What causes the dangling issuers in federated credentials?
How can an attacker abuse dangling Issuers?
Pre-requisites for the attack scenario
Dangling Issuer domain take over, host OIDC discovery metadata & steps to obtain access tokens
Use tokens to access resources

How to identify dangling Issuers in federated credentials?
Provide guidance to identify dangling issuers using Graph APIs

Mitigations & best practices
How to prevent dangling issuers?
Tenant level policies to prevent token issuance from untrusted issuers

Future work
Research on other identity provider Federated Credentials

About The Speaker

Gautam Peri is a Senior Security Engineer in EPSF SERPENT (Service Pentest) team at Microsoft. He has over 9 years of experience as a security professional in multiple organizations including Microsoft and Citibank N.A. He started his career as a software developer and became a security professional. Currently, Gautam focuses on securing Azure Edge & Platform and Windows & Devices services at Microsoft. He is passionate about identifying vulnerabilities at scale. Gautam presented a workshop at DEF CON 32 and a speaker at OWASP BASC (Boston Application Security Conference) 2024. Gautam holds CISSP & GCPN certifications, he is committed to continuous learning and development and drives internal knowledge share events.

14:05 - 14:35

🔨 Tool Demo: Muhammad Yuga Nugraha:
TencentGoat: An Intentionally Vulnerable Tencent Cloud Environment

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Abstract

Cloud misconfigurations often create unexpected attack vectors, exposing sensitive resources and allowing attackers to escalate privileges or gain unauthorized access. In this session, we’ll explore common security misconfigurations in Tencent Cloud using TencentGoat, an intentionally vulnerable cloud environment designed for hands-on learning.

We’ll explore how these misconfigurations typically occur, how TencentCloud might unintentionally leave security gaps, and how attackers exploit these weaknesses using well-known cloud attack techniques.

About The Speaker

Muhammad Yuga Nugraha is an experienced DevSecOps engineer at Practical DevSecOps, specializing in research and development in areas such as DevSecOps, Cloud Security, and Cloud Native Security. He has co-authored notable certifications like the Certified Container Security Expert (CCSE), Certified Cloud Native Security Expert (CCNSE), and Certified Software Supply Chain Expert (CSSE).

Yuga frequently speaks at industry events including PyCon (APAC 2024, SG 2025), AWS Community Day Indonesia 2024, KCD Indonesia 2024 and delivers training sessions for government bodies and telecom companies. Additionally, he holds certifications including CDP (Certified DevSecOps Professional), and becoming a Kubestronaut.

14:35 - 15:15

💡 Talk: Simon Maxwell-Stewart:
Restless Guests: From Subscription to Backdoor Intruder

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Abstract

Through novel research our team uncovered a critical vulnerability in Azure's guest user model, revealing that guest users can create and own subscriptions in external tenants they've joined—even without explicit privileges. This capability, which is often overlooked by Azure administrators, allows attackers to exploit these subscriptions to expand their access, move laterally within resource tenants, and create stealthy backdoor identities in the Entra directory. Alarmingly, Microsoft has confirmed real-world attacks using this method, highlighting a significant gap in many Azure threat models. This talk will share the findings from this first of its kind research into this exploit found in the wild.

We'll dive into how subscriptions, intended to act as security boundaries, make it possible for any guest to create and control a subscription undermines this premise. We'll provide examples of attackers leveraging this pathway to exploit known attack vectors to escalate privileges and establish persistent access, a threat most Azure admins do not anticipate when inviting guest users. While Microsoft plans to introduce preventative options in the future, this gap leaves organizations exposed to risks they may not even realize exist––but should definitely know about!

About The Speaker

Simon Maxwell-Stewart is a seasoned data scientist with over a decade of experience in big data environments and a passion for pushing the boundaries of analytics. A Physics graduate from the University of Oxford, Simon began his career tackling complex data challenges and has since built a track record of delivering impactful machine learning solutions across diverse industries.

Prior to joining BT, Simon served as a Lead Data Scientist in the healthcare sector, where he successfully brought several machine learning projects into production, transforming research insights into actionable tools. Currently, he leverages his expertise as the resident "graph nerd" in BT's Security Research team, exploring cutting-edge graph-based techniques to enhance network security and drive innovative approaches to threat detection.

Simon’s unique combination of technical depth and creative problem-solving has made him a key contributor to advancements in data science and security.

15:15 - 15:55

💡 Talk: Hanna Papirna & Emma Yuan Fang:
Threat Modelling at Scale: Breaking Down Cloud Complexity

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Abstract

This presentation aims to provide an actionable strategy to connect theoretical threat modelling frameworks and practical cloud implementations. We analyze why legacy approaches do not work for cloud-native applications, particularly microservices and serverless architectures.

We will explore how to:
establish a realistic threat modelling schedule which provides real value lowering the risk of handling threat modelling as just a "tick-the-box" activity;
create effective cloud architecture diagrams to make it understandable and handy for developers to brainstorm possible threats;
implement effective system decomposition strategy to get rid of the monolithic threat modelling which fails for distributed cloud systems. We will demonstrate how this decomposition enables a targeted application of the STRIDE model, highlighting cloud-specific threat vectors and nuances, such as those arising in cross-tenant scenarios;
adapt DREAD risk evaluation framework for the cloud;
effectively engage stakeholders across development, security, and operations;
use AI as a starting point in threat modelling (demo included) and understand where human expertise remains critical.
We will make sure attendees gain a clear understanding of why traditional threat modelling is insufficient for modern cloud environments and will leave with a practical framework and techniques they can immediately apply to their own cloud deployments, improving their organization's security posture and reducing cloud-related risks.

About The Speaker

Hanna is a cybersecurity expert and consultant specialising in securing cloud environments for clients in various industries such as financial services, commercial banking, and retail. With the experience in Secure Landing Zones, Infrastructure as Code, identity management, endpoint protection, security operations, and DevOps, she helps organizations to build resilient cybersecurity strategies and roadmaps.

As a certified Microsoft Trainer, she conducts hands-on workshops on cloud and cybersecurity topics, empowering teams to navigate modern security challenges. Passionate about Cloud Security Posture Management and robust defenses against evolving threats.

15:55 - 16:35

💡 Talk: Seth Art:
whoAMI: Discovering and exploiting a large-scale AMI name confusion attack

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Abstract

It’s not every day you stumble upon a technique that enables remote code execution (RCE) in thousands of AWS accounts at once—but that’s exactly what happened with the whoAMI attack. By researching a known misconfiguration through a new lens, we discovered how to gain access to thousands of AWS accounts that unknowingly use an insecure pattern when retrieving AMI IDs.

By carefully naming a malicious AMI, an attacker can trick vulnerable Terraform code, AWS CLI scripts, and even third-party CI/CD systems into running the wrong AMI. I’ll explain how I uncovered this vulnerability, show proof-of-concept demos, and share how I discovered this vulnerability affected a third party continuous integration platform used by many popular open source projects, and how even some of AWS’s own internal systems were vulnerable to this attack.

If you’ve ever launched an EC2 instance, this talk is for you: learn how cloud image name-confusion attacks can be used by attackers to gain initial access to cloud environments and how you can prevent them.

About The Speaker

Seth Art is currently a Security Researcher & Advocate at Datadog. Prior to joining Datadog, Seth created and led the Cloud Penetration Testing practice at Bishop Fox. He is the author of many open source tools including BadPods, IAMVulnerable, and CloudFoxable, and the co-creator of the popular cloud penetration testing tool, CloudFox.

16:35 - 17:05

🔨 Tool Demo: Trevor:
Living off the Graph: Module-less Azure Recon & Exploitation via PowerShell

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Abstract

As orgs lean harder on Entra and Azure for critical IdP and infra, attackers are shifting too. This talk introduces a PowerShell-based post-exploitation toolkit that uses only native Windows features and the Microsoft Graph API — no external modules, agents, or DLLs required. Designed to “live off the Graph,” it enables stealthy recon, escalation, persistence, and exfil using just REST calls and default PowerShell, evading top EDRs with ease (as of April 2025, at least).

We’ll walk through real-world kill chains using Microsoft’s own APIs, abusing OAuth flows, consent, and service principal escalation to move laterally, assign roles, drop loot, and stay hidden. Attendees will learn how attackers can inject secrets into app registrations, enumerate high-privilege service principals, assign Entra + Azure roles via Graph/ARM, and exfiltrate via tenant-native blob storage - all without touching the Azure portal or importing a single module.

No implants. No imports. No sketchy domains. Just what’s already there.

To ground the talk, I’ll give a short crash course on Azure OAuth, app types, API endpoints, and how attackers bypass common controls like MFA, CAP, and Token Policies.

A full lab demo will show how access is gained via spear-phishing, followed by escalation and persistence using only built-in PowerShell. Blue teamers will walk away with concrete detection ideas. Red teamers will leave with a framework—or inspiration to build their own.

Toolkit Breakdown

Requirements:
- PowerShell execution
- Internet access to Azure APIs
- A juicy Azure target

Auth:
- Spear-phish via Microsoft’s Device Code Auth (popularized by Russian APTs this year)
- Store tokens in a native JSON-based keyring
- Tag tokens by role for scope tracking

Recon:
- Enumerate Service Principals + Graph scopes (regex filtering)
- Enumerate ARM role assignments (regex filtering)
- Enumerate Key Vaults
- Identify attack paths from collected data

Persistence:
- Create malicious apps
- Inject secrets into any apps
- Add remediation tasks
- Spawn containers/functions

Escalation:
- Use keyring + recon to select injection targets
- Pivot via apps to bypass CAP/MFA/token policies
- Dump Key Vaults
- Rotate identities mid-chain
- Assign permissions to any app

Exfil:
- Recon modules write loot as .csv
- Create public Azure blob storage
- Upload loot directly

Stealth:
- No compiled code—just .ps1, .json, .csv
- Built-in PowerShell + REST only
- Avoids PowerShell and module-based detections
- No alerts from CrowdStrike, Defender, or SEP in testing

Automation:
- Spear-phish module auto-generates lures and captures tokens
- One-shot persistence module sets up a cron-style enumerate+dump pipeline in cloud containers
- One-shot exfil module creates resources, publishes open loot container
- Operator just selects targets/IDs

This tool is actively developed by me. Nobody’s seen it in action yet—except my girlfriend and my cats. Been saving it for DEFCON :)

About The Speaker

A lifelong hacker and technology enjoyer, with a passion for automation and expanding my knowledge of new systems. I got started with "security" as a preteen, hacking with BackTrack and taking advantage of the relatively insecure implementations that were pervasive in the early 2000s. After finishing school, I started working in IT and eventually moved into cybersecurity professionally.

Fast forward to 2025: I'm currently a Lead Security Engineer at Wells Fargo, focusing on adversary emulation and offensive security research. In this role, I create PoCs and tools to exploit the latest vulns and bypass EDR, and I train junior engineers and analysts on complex techniques and topics. The tooling and training I provide typically illustrate full kill chains, empowering them to hunt and respond with speed and precision.

Prior to my current role, I worked as a Senior Cloud Security Engineer at Wells Fargo, focusing heavily on blue team–oriented Azure operations. Much of the inspiration for this tool and demo comes from the experience I gained working in the Bank's highly restricted, federally regulated environment. Before Wells Fargo, I was at Sony (PlayStation—the cool one :P) as an L3 Sysadmin, and at Kudelski Security (an MSSP) as a Security Engineer supporting dozens of massive clients around the globe. Thanks to that prior experience, I’ve had the privilege of being exposed to a wide variety of environments and tooling, which I'm grateful for.

Outside of work, I'm either studying (GXPN currently) or in the lab developing my own projects, researching, building, breaking, etc.

Unrelated, but I’ve also been DJing at DEFCON for the last few years, so I’m especially hyped to level up my participation and submit a talk/demo for my favorite village. DEFCON pushed me further down this path early on, and I’m ready to give back. Besides computers, I’m also very into fast cars and massive sound systems.

When it comes to offensive ops: living off the land is the motto, exploitation is the mission, automation is the lifestyle.

10:00 - 10:35

💡 Talk: Ofir Yakobi:
No CVE, No Mention, No Problem? Uncovering Security Fixes Cloud Vendors Don't Talk About

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Abstract

Cloud service providers continuously update their platforms to address emerging risks, but not all fixes are created equal - especially when security issues or misconfigurations are addressed only through quiet updates to documentation, with no advisory, changelog entry, or CVE. This practice, while common, creates blind spots for security teams and researchers who rely on transparency to assess risk.
We investigated several major cloud platforms and uncovered security-relevant changes that were never formally disclosed. In one case, a reported issue was silently addressed through an unnoticed documentation update - without a CVE, advisory, or public acknowledgment. In other instances, we identified misconfiguration-related risks simply by analyzing incremental modifications in official documentation over time, revealing behind-the-scenes changes that were never explicitly communicated. We also encountered conflicting documentation, where different parts of the same platform described the behavior of a configuration differently depending on the context-leading to confusion and potential misconfigurations in production environments.
Through this talk, attendees will learn how to identify undocumented or inconsistently described security behaviors, and avoid relying blindly on vendor documentation. We'll also cover best practices to mitigate these risks - like testing assumptions, hardening defaults, and treating documentation gaps as potential security signals.

About The Speaker

Ofir Yakobi is a Security Researcher at Orca Security. With almost a decade of experience in research, detecting cybercriminals and unveiling numerous security issues for high-profile companies, she brings her expertise in breaking and strengthening cloud vendors. She's as passionate at uncovering vulnerabilities as she is at picking her next travel destination.

10:35-11:10

💡 Talk: Michael Katchinskiy & Yossi Weizmann:
Quickstart for a Breach! When Official Installations Expose Your K8 and Your Cloud

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Abstract

Have you ever used the preinstalled package to deploy an application on your Kubernetes cluster supplied by the official website? There is a chance that you just exposed your workloads to attackers.
This session examines how deployment templates that are provided by vendors —particularly officially published Helm charts designed for rapid setup and minimal user friction often end up exposing your clusters and potentially your entire cloud environment.

We will showcase services shipped with misconfigured Helm charts and demonstrate real-world attacks that leverage them to execute code on the container and move laterally across both the cluster and the underlying cloud account. In addition, we will reveal sensitive applications that remain undiscovered by attackers, illustrating how easily they can be weaponized in the wild.
Lastly, we will summarize common pitfalls and provide actionable strategies to prevent these issues from happening to you.

Abouut The Speaker

Michael Katchinskiy is a Security Researcher at Microsoft Defender for Cloud. His work focuses on researching and analyzing new attack vectors in cloud-native environments, specializing in Kubernetes and integrating CNAPP data to detect and prevent attacks.

11:10-11:40

🔨 Tool Demo: Golan Myers:
Don't trust Rufus, he's a mole - introducing KIEMPossible

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Abstract

Kubernetes has become a center of modern cloud-native applications. Its complex architecture and dynamic nature introduce new security issues regularly, and while significant strides have been made in addressing security challenges, the task of managing entities and their access rights remains daunting. This talk will explore authorization auditing, examining the challenges of identifying cluster entities and access rights vs the required privileges to perform their intended tasks. We will discuss the importance of audit logs in understanding access patterns and complexities associated with such log analysis. We will introduce KIEMPossible, an open-source tool designed to help achieve least privilege status. KIEMPossible analyzes entities' permissions and usage through audit logs, providing insights for informed decision-making. This aims to simplify Kubernetes Infrastructure Entitlement Management (KIEM), allowing organizations to mitigate risks associated with excessive privileges.

About The Speaker

A Security Researcher at Palo Alto Networks specializing in Cloud and Kubernetes.

11:40 - 12:15

💡 Talk: Leo Tsaousis:
Cognito, Ergo Some Extra Permissions

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Abstract

What if I told you that until recently, sharing CloudWatch dashboards publicly could introduce an initial access vector for attackers targeting AWS accounts? And that a series of bugs rooted in Amazon Cognito resulted in dozens of dashboards being exposed on the internet?

This is the story of a vulnerability accidentally discovered in a cloud security assessment and patched by AWS in July 2024, which provided unauthenticated actors some ...unexpected permissions into a target account. Our research takes a deep dive into this relatively unknown exploitation technique, showcasing once more why default configuration isn't always secure.

Join us in this journey that starts from the peculiar discovery, covers the analysis of an undocumented web application, and leads to the eventual 4-step attack that could breach the cloud perimeter. This talk will not only investigate the impact of a bug that once was, but will also discuss the risks remaining post-remediation, providing guidance on what AWS users can do to protect their estates against abuse.

About The Speaker

Leo is a Senior Security Consultant at WithSecure where he leads the Attack Path Mapping service. His current role involves planning and conducting offensive security assessments, while building the team globally and pushing the boundaries of adversarial simulation.

When he’s not helping SOC teams or leading purple teams for WithSecure’s clients, you will find Leo presenting in security conferences around the world including DEF CON, SO-CON, DEATHcon, ROOTCON and BSides. His research output has ranged from mobile security to CVEs on IBM and Cisco products but his secret passion of cloud security can be seen from talks about AWS attack paths and Kubernetes threat detection.

12:15 - 12:55

💡 Talk: Rodrigo Montoro:
Weaponizing SSM: Practical Exploits and Hardening Techniques for AWS.

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Abstract

AWS Systems Manager (SSM) is a powerful service for managing and automating your AWS and hybrid infrastructure. However, its very flexibility can be weaponized by attackers seeking to gain unauthorized access, execute malicious code, establish persistence, and disrupt operations. This talk demonstrates the practical malicious use of various SSM features, revealing how attackers can abuse benign functionalities.

We will dissect distinct attack vectors targeting SSM capabilities. Learn how Run Command can be leveraged for remote code execution at scale, turning your management tool into an attacker's playground. We'll explore the alarming potential of the SSM Agent being exploited as a persistent Remote Access Trojan (RAT), enabling stealthy cross-account control. Discover the risks lurking within publicly shared SSM Documents, exposing sensitive information to unintended eyes.

The session will further illuminate how Parameter Store, designed for secure configuration management, can be poisoned to compromise application logic and secrets. Understand how State Manager, intended for maintaining consistent configurations, can be twisted to establish persistent malicious states. We will also dissect the abuse of Session Manager for unauthorized interactive shell access, bypassing traditional network security controls and boundaries. The often-overlooked Patch Manager will be examined for its potential to disrupt patching cycles or, in specific scenarios, introduce malicious changes. Finally, we will explore how Distributor, a tool for software deployment, can be exploited to introduce and maintain a foothold of malicious packages across your fleet.

Crucially, this talk goes beyond simply identifying vulnerabilities. We will provide concrete and actionable hardening techniques and mitigation strategies for each abuse vector. Learn how to implement the principle of least privilege across SSM IAM permissions, establish robust monitoring and alerting mechanisms, and implement secure configuration practices for the Parameter Store and State Manager.

Attendees will understand the often-underestimated security risks associated with AWS SSM and acquire practical knowledge to fortify their AWS environments against these potential exploits. This session is essential for security professionals, cloud architects, DevOps engineers, and anyone responsible for the security and operational integrity of AWS infrastructures.

Outline with techniques we are going to present and discuss :
1. Abusing Run Command for Remote Code Execution:
2. Exploiting SSM Agent as a Remote Access Trojan (RAT)
3. Abusing Publicly Shared SSM Documents
4. Leveraging Parameter Store for Configuration Poisoning
5. Abusing State Manager for Persistent Configuration Drift
6. Abusing Session Manager for Unauthorized Interactive Access
7. Exploiting Patch Manager for Inconsistent or Malicious Patching
8. Weaponizing Software Distribution: Abusing AWS SSM Distributor

About The Speaker

Rodrigo Montoro has more than 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Computer Security. Most of his career worked with open source security software (firewalls, IDS, IPS, HIDS, log management, endpoint monitoring), incident detection & response, and Cloud Security. Currently, he is Director of Research at Clavis Security. Before that, he worked as Cloud Researcher at Tenchi Security, Head of Research and Development at Apura Cyber Intelligence, SOC/Researcher at Tempest Security, Senior Security Administrator at Sucuri, Researcher at Spiderlabs. Author of 2 patented technologies involving innovation in the detection field. One is related to discovering malicious digital documents. The second one is in how to analyze malicious HTTP traffic. Rodrigo has spoken at several opensource and security conferences (DEFCON Workshops, DEFCON Cloud Village, OWASP AppSec, SANS (DFIR, SIEM Summit & CloudSecNext), Toorcon (USA), H2HC (São Paulo and Mexico), SecTor (Canada), CNASI, SOURCE, ZonCon (Amazon Internal Conference), Blackhat Brazil, DEFCON Workshop, BSidesLV

12:55 - 13:15

Closing Note

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Abstract

A brief on what got uncovered and prize distribution.

Labs Schedule

🗡️ Attack Labs: 5 | 🛡️ Defense labs: 3 | 🔍 Investigation Labs: 3 | 🧰 Tools & Misc: 4

11.00 - 13.00

Cryptojacking in the Cloud: Investigating Attacks on Container Clusters

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Abstract:

In this live incident response simulation, participants are divided into teams and dropped into the aftermath of a cryptojacking breach inside an AWS environment. Drawing from anonymized real-world incidents, each team receives a curated dataset of AWS-native logs representing a mining attack that originated from within an Amazon EKS cluster and abused EC2 nodes and IAM roles.

Participants are challenged to:

* Detect if cryptomining took place

* Identify the exact AWS resource responsible (EC2 instance or EKS pod)

* Reconstruct the attack sequence using real AWS telemetry

* Present a concise evidence-backed narrative of attacker behavior

No vendor tooling. No slides. Just a time-bound hands-on challenge with AWS-native logs and a simulated IR situation.

Outline:

1. Team Assignment and Scenario Briefing

Participants are randomly divided into small investigation teams using physical paper cards labeled with team numbers (distributed on-site by the presenter). Each team represents a cloud security IR team within an AWS environment.

Scenario is introduced:

“GuardDuty detected DNS queries to a known mining pool from an EC2 instance tied to your EKS cluster. Malware Protection has flagged a suspicious binary. Some EC2 nodes have already shut down. You have 15 minutes to figure out what happened — and who inside your cluster started mining.”

2. Data Distribution

Each team receives a sanitized investigation dataset, reflecting native AWS telemetry formats. This includes:

* cloudtrail.json – IAM and EC2 activity

* vpcflow.csv – outbound connections, traffic volume to mining pools

* eks-audit.log – container/pod creation, IRSA usage, DaemonSet events

* billing.csv – abnormal cost spikes

* findings.json – GuardDuty alerts (e.g., CryptoCurrency:EC2/BitcoinTool.B!DNS, EC2/MaliciousFile)

* ec2-metadata.txt – mapping between EKS pods and EC2 instance IDs

3. Investigation Phase

Teams analyze the datasets to answer:

* Did cryptojacking occur?

* Which exact EC2 instance or EKS pod was the source?

* What sequence of attacker behavior led to it?

Facilitator provides live guidance via screen projection:

* Timer and remaining time

* Non-revealing nudges (e.g., “Which pod had access to metadata?”)

Teams must:

* Connect GuardDuty findings to EC2 node

* Use audit logs to trace back pod behavior

* Correlate billing and VPC logs with malicious activity

* Identify suspicious service account access and/or miner artifacts

4. Submission and Judging

The first team to submit:

* A valid resource ID (e.g., i-0ab1234 or eks-pod-x)

* Three log entries supporting their claim

* A short narrative of the attacker’s behavior is declared the winner.

Other teams may submit until time is called. Facilitator validates log evidence and completeness.

5. Debrief and Kill Chain Reveal

Facilitator presents:

* The actual attack path (with a MITRE ATT&CK mapping)

* The correct compromised resource

* Key indicators present in the logs

* What each team found (or missed)

* Common AWS-specific blind spots:

* IRSA assumptions in CloudTrail

* Metadata abuse not visible without EKS logs

* EC2 → pod attribution challenges

6. Conclusion and Takeaways

Participants receive:

* AWS-focused checklist for detecting cryptomining

* Reference sheet mapping AWS logs to investigation needs

* Practical recommendations for:

* EKS hardening (IRSA lockdown, pod security)

* EC2 malware detection

* VPC egress alerting

Instructor: Adelia Ibragimova

Instructor Bio: Adelia Ibragimova is a security engineer with a focus on cloud-native detection, incident response, and SOC automation. With hands-on experience at EPAM Systems and Amazon, designs and operates scalable detection platforms across AWS, GCP, and Azure, background includes real-time incident handling and the use of open-source tools to drive investigation and response in production environments.

13.30 - 15.30

TryHackMe - Azure Purple Teaming: Emulating and Detecting Cloud TTPs

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Abstract:

As cloud infrastructure becomes a prime target for adversaries, defenders must evolve their detection capabilities to stay ahead. Join us for an immersive, hands-on workshop where we’ll emulate real-world attacker behaviours and build compelling detection logic using Azure-native logs and tools.

This workshop introduces participants to Azure's control and data plane logging systems, the visibility gaps in API-based detection, and how Microsoft Sentinel can be leveraged for threat detection using KQL. Participants will first explore the landscape of Azure telemetry, including log tables like AzureActivity, AuditLogs, SigninLogs, and MicrosoftGraphAPI, to understand what’s available—and what’s missing—when trying to detect threats in the cloud.

The core of the session is focused on executing and detecting high-impact TTPs such as:

Unauthorised use of Azure CLI

Run Command Abuse on virtual machines

Mass blob reads and deletions

Malicious Key Vault access attempts

Through guided simulations, attendees will perform these actions in a dedicated Azure tenant, then pivot to the defender side to query relevant logs using Kusto Query Language (KQL), surfacing anomalies, and crafting detections.

Whether you're a cloud defender, threat hunter, or detection engineer, this session offers a rare opportunity to simulate adversary behaviour and refine detection strategies in a realistic Azure environment. By the end of this workshop, you’ll leave with practical KQL queries, detection playbooks, and hands-on experience in defending cloud infrastructure against modern threats.

Tenant Deployment Instructions:

Each participant will receive access to a pre-provisioned Azure tenant with the necessary services (including virtual machines, storage accounts, Key Vaults, function apps, and AKS clusters) already deployed and configured. Diagnostic settings will be pre-enabled to stream control and data plane logs into Microsoft Sentinel for immediate use.

Furthermore, all participants will deploy their Azure tenants through the TryHackMe platform, where credentials will be automatically provisioned. This streamlined setup ensures secure, consistent access for all attendees. Additional browser-based consoles will be provided directly within the TryHackMe environment to support hands-on activities, eliminating the need for local installation.

Outline:

Part 1: Introduction to Azure Logging and Threat Detection

Overview of Purple Teaming Concepts
- Collaboration between the red and blue teams
- Value in cloud-specific contexts (like Azure)
Azure Logging Ecosystem
- Control Plane Logs
  - Definition and coverage (e.g., AzureActivity)
  - Limitations in depth and granularity
- Data Plane Logs
  - Access patterns to Azure resources (e.g., blob read/write)
  - Less visibility unless explicitly enabled (e.g., diagnostic settings)
- API Logging Limitations
  - Incomplete visibility for certain activities
  - Lack of fine-grained parameters in some logs
Log Tables Overview
- AzureActivity
- MicrosoftGraphAPI
- SigninLogs
- AuditLogs
- BlobStorageLogs

Part 2: KQL Primer for Detection Engineering

Kusto Query Language Basics
- Filtering, projecting, joining
Using KQL in Azure Sentinel/Microsoft Defender
- Querying specific tables: AzureActivity, SigninLogs, AuditLogs, etc.
- Timestamp-based filtering
- Case examples: login anomalies, resource tampering

Part 3: Threat Emulation Scenarios (TTPs)

Each TTP includes:

Threat description
MITRE mapping
How to emulate it in Azure
Relevant log tables and KQL to detect it

Example TTPs for emulation:

TTP 1: Unauthorized Use of Azure CLI
TTP 2: Run Command on Virtual Machine
TTP 3: Mass Blob Read / Download
TTP 4: Malicious Attempt to Read from Key Vault
TTP 5: Malicious Function App Deployment
TTP 6: Kubernetes Cluster Compromise

Part 4: Wrap-Up and Recommendations

Logging Review
Next Steps
Conclusion

16.00 - 18.00

pAWS: The Breach Has Happened. Can You Catch It?

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Abstract:

Cloud breaches leave footprints - can you track them?

In this hands-on workshop, participants will deploy and investigate a simulated breach inside pAWS: a purpose-built AWS lab environment designed to emulate a realistic small organization. Unlike typical labs with isolated services, pAWS models interconnected users, workloads, and data across departments like finance, marketing, and engineering - just like real cloud environments adversaries target.

The breach simulation goes beyond cloud. Participants will trace adversary activity spanning AWS, identity, endpoints, and network surfaces - including API abuse, privilege escalation, persistence via SSM, and data exfiltration - all correlated in Elastic Security using rich cross-domain telemetry.

Infrastructure is deployed via Terraform and Python with reusability baked in. No prior AWS setup required - we’ll provide access to preconfigured Elastic environments.

You’ll walk away with:

- Practical experience emulating and investigating cloud-native attack paths

- A better understanding of how real attackers move through hybrid environments

- Open-source tooling to expand or reuse the lab post-workshop

Whether you’re in detection engineering, threat research, or purple teaming, pAWS delivers the full kill chain - with all the paw prints left behind. Come for the cloud, stay for the paw prints.

Outline:

0:00–0:15 - Overview of the simulated environment. What’s in scope? Who are the identities? How are assets and roles connected? Realism in org simulation.

0:15 - 0:35 - Adversary background, threat intel, and simulation overview

0:35 - 1:35 - Open hunting session with real-time collaboration and Elastic dashboards

1:35 - 1:50 - Group debrief: share findings, detections, blind spots

1:50 - 2:00 - Wrap-up + takeaways + repo access

Instructor: Terrance DeJesus

Instructor Bio: Terrance DeJesus is a Senior Security Research Engineer on Elastic’s Threat Research & Detection Engineering (TRADE) team, where he simulates threat actor behavior across cloud, identity, and endpoint surfaces to build detections that matter. His work blends offensive tactics with defensive depth - from replaying real-world breaches in AWS and Azure, to building open-source tools that bring adversary tradecraft to life.

Terrance has a passion for making security detection real and accessible, bridging the gap between threat emulation and telemetry-driven hunting. Whether he's reverse-engineering OAuth abuse or staging multi-cloud attack chains in Terraform, his goal is always the same: help defenders see what attackers are doing - and stop them faster.

When he’s not building labs, developing detections or tuning detection rules, you’ll find him chasing kids, printing gadgets, gaming or writing spaghetti code.

11.00 - 13.00

Serverless but Not Defenseless: A Security Deep Dive into Cloud Run

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Abstract:

Google Cloud Run offers a powerful way to run containerized applications without managing infrastructure—but with abstraction comes new security challenges. This 2-hour hands-on workshop will equip attendees with the skills to securely deploy and manage services on Cloud Run using DevSecOps principles, automated CI/CD pipelines, and GCP-native tools for policy enforcement and monitoring.

Participants will explore common security pitfalls, implement defense strategies, simulate attacks, and walk away with reusable blueprints to secure Cloud Run in real-world deployments.

Outline:

1. Why Cloud Run & Where It Fails

- GCE vs GAE vs Cloud Run: pros, cons, and attack surface

- Shared responsibility model & use case mapping

- Common vulnerabilities: exposed endpoints, over-permissive IAM, SSRF, and insecure tokens

- Real-world incident examples and OWASP Serverless Top 10

2. Secure Deployment with CI/CD & DevSecOps

- Setting up GitHub Actions pipelines for Cloud Run

- Container security: using Snyk/Trivy for image scans

- Secrets management with GCP Secret Manager

- Auth and access: OIDC integration, IAM hardening, workload identity

- Build, scan, push, and deploy pipeline to Artifact Registry

Hands-on:

- Secure app deployment to Cloud Run with IAM restrictions

- CI/CD pipeline setup with scanning and auto-deploy on pass

- Apply least privilege roles to service accounts

3. Monitoring, Logging & Alerting

- Cloud Audit Logs, Error Reporting, and Alerting Policies

- Visualizing runtime activity in Cloud Monitoring

- Detecting misconfigurations and security violations in real-time

- Integration examples: third-party SIEMs like Chronicle/Splunk

Hands-on:

- Trigger policy violations or misconfig

- Capture alerts and interpret logs

- Dashboards for visibility

4. Enforcing Security with Policy-as-Code

- Using Config Validator to write GCP security constraints

- Policy Controller & drift detection concepts

- Blocking unauthenticated deployments via guardrails

- Bonus: intro to Cloud Armor, VPC-SC, and DDoS protection

Hands-on:

- Apply policy templates for Cloud Run

- Test enforcement with a violating deployment

- Observe guardrails in action in GCP console

Instructor: Nishant Sharma

Instructor Bio: Nishant Sharma is a seasoned cybersecurity professional with deep expertise in cloud security, DevSecOps, and hands-on technical training. He was in Cybersecurity education for 10+ years during which he served as VP Labs R&D at INE.com, headed R&D at Pentester Academy, developing thousands of host, networking and cloud security labs on AWS, GCP and Azure infrastructure. These labs were used by learners in 125+ countries. A frequent presenter at DEF CON, Black Hat, and OWASP events, and trainer/speaker/author to 10+ trainings, 15+ talks and 9+ open source tools. More can be found on his personal website: https://nishantsharmax.com/

13.30 -15.30

Prowler - Maximize your Cloud Security Compliance Assessments with Open Source and a pinch of AI

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Abstract:

Cloud security and compliance are no longer optional—they are essential for modern organizations operating in dynamic, multi-cloud environments. This hands-on workshop dives into Prowler, a powerful open-source tool designed to assess and improve your cloud security posture, with a special focus on AWS, Azure, GCP and Kubernetes environments.Over the course of two hours, participants will learn how to deploy and customize Prowler to perform automated compliance checks aligned with industry standards such as CIS, GDPR, HIPAA, and more. The session will also introduce practical techniques for extending Prowler’s capabilities using scripting, integrations, and basic AI-assisted analysis to prioritize risks and surface actionable insights.

Outline:

0:00 - 0:10 | Welcome & Introduction

Workshop goals and agenda
Why cloud security compliance matters
Overview of open source and AI's role in modern cloud security

0:10 - 0:25 | Introduction to Prowler

What is Prowler?
Key features and use cases
Supported cloud environments (focus on AWS)
Compliance frameworks supported (CIS, GDPR, HIPAA, etc.)

0:25 - 0:45 | Hands-on: Installing and Running Prowler

Environment setup
Running your first scan
Review of output formats (JSON, HTML, CSV)

0:45 - 1:05 | Understanding & Customizing Prowler Checks

Navigating Prowler's check architecture
Filtering and selecting checks
Creating custom checks
Integrating Prowler with CI/CD pipelines or automation scripts

1:05 - 1:25 | From Data to Action: Analyzing Scan Results

Interpreting scan results
Mapping to compliance requirements
Prioritizing remediation
Exporting and reporting for stakeholders

1:25 - 1:40 | AI Enhancement: Smart Summaries & Prioritization

Using basic AI techniques to:
- Summarize findings
- Classify severity
- Suggest remediation strategies
Demo: Applying AI to enhance Prowler output

1:40 - 1:50 | Real-World Scenarios & Use Cases

Examples from production environments
Common pitfalls and best practices
When and how to scale assessments

1:50 - 2:00 | Wrap-Up & Q&A

Recap of key takeaways
Additional resources and community links
Open Q&A

Instructor: Toni de la Fuente, Pedro Martin

Instructor Bio: Toni de la Fuente, Prowler Open Source creator and CEO, has profoundly impacted cybersecurity. His AWS background and passion for FLOSS, cloud computing, and information security have fueled contributions like phpRADmin and Alfresco BART. An esteemed speaker at BlackHat and DEFCON, de la Fuente champions open-source solutions and cloud security advancements.

16.00 - 18.00

Level Up Your CI/CD: Building a secure pipeline with OSS

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Abstract:

What does the "perfect" CI/CD pipeline look like, especially one built with security at its core? This hands-on workshop explores that ideal using readily available open-source tools. We'll dissect the essential stages of a modern pipeline, demonstrating how to integrate security seamlessly throughout the development lifecycle (DevSecOps).

Through practical, step-by-step guidance, we'll implement key security checks like iinfrastructure vulnerability scanning, secrets detection and code analysis using popular OSS tools within a functional pipeline. We won’t forget about the pipeline security itself, we will review best practices to secure our CI/CD process. While we'll showcase specific tools and configurations, the goal is not just replication, but understanding how and why these security controls work.

Discover the underlying principles of secure pipeline design and leave with actionable techniques to start building your own hardened, practical CI/CD pipeline.

Outline

1. Introduction

- Brief presenter introduction.

- Setting the stage: The need for secure CI/CD pipelines.

- Fundamentals Recap:

Quick overview: What is Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, and Continuous Security?

2. Scope & Learning Objectives

- Workshop Focus:

Demonstrate building a "perfect" (secure and practical) CI/CD pipeline using open-source tools.

- Key Goal:

Inspirational, not prescriptive.

Attendees should understand the principles and identify modular components they can adapt to their own environments.

The aim is to grasp the idea of a secure pipeline, not to replicate this specific example verbatim.

- Learning Outcomes:

- Understand the key stages of a secure pipeline

- Know relevant OSS tools for each stage

- Grasp the principles needed to start building or improving their own secure CI/CD process

- Out of Scope (What this workshop is NOT):

- Deep dives into specific development workflows (e.g., Gitflow, Trunk-based)

- Focus on a specific application technology stack (language/framework agnostic where possible)

- A definitive statement on the "best" tools (alternatives will be mentioned for key steps)

- Assumption:

We will work from a simplified "greenfield" perspective for clarity.

3. "Perfect Secure Pipeline" Overview

- Visual explanation of the "perfect" pipeline stages.

4. Secure Pipeline Step-by-Step Breakdown (Hands-On)

For each key stage (e.g., Pipeline Scan, IaC Scan, Container Scanning, Secrets Detection, SAST/SCA):

- Goal:

What security risk are we trying to mitigate with this step?

- OSS Tool Demo:

Demo of the chosen open-source tool (e.g., Checkov for IaC, Trivy for container scanning, Gitleaks for secrets).

Briefly mention 1–2 alternatives.

Live Demo – Break & Fix:

- Pipeline without the check -> potential security failure

- Integrate OSS security tool into the pipeline

- Trigger pipeline again -> security issue found

- Fix the issue

- Re-run pipeline -> successful pass

Note: For time reasons, we will focus especially on:

- Pipeline Security

- Infra as Code Scan

- Container Scan

- Secrets Detection steps

5. Conclusion & Q&A

Instructor: Andoni Alonso Fernández & Paco Sanchez

Instructor Bio: Andoni Alonso Fernández is Cloud Security Engineer at Prowler. I began my career as a Sysadmin, evolved to Site Reliability Engineer, and a few years ago crossed over to the dark side... Security. A long-time CTF enthusiast and hooked on anything with a scoreboard. Currently, I'm starting unicrons.cloud project aiming to share cloud security knowledge and resources with the community.

Paco Sanchez, Platform Engineer I’m an SRE focused on Developer Productivity and Platform Engineering, with over 8 years of experience building tools that help developers work smarter. I pride myself on being highly pragmatic, always prioritizing solutions that balance efficiency and impact. Oh, and fun fact: my right thumb is actually my toe. Yes, it’s as weird as it sounds, but I like to think I can give "Super Likes".

11.00 - 12.00

NoPrompt: Exposing Conditional Access Failures in Azure

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Abstract:

NoPrompt is a lightweight testing tool that helps uncover where Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) allows password-only authentication—granting access without triggering Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or Conditional Access policies. In many real-world environments, device-based Conditional Access rules or misconfigurations can unintentionally permit full access with just a username and password, especially from desktop platforms or legacy agents. NoPrompt simulates authentication requests from a variety of user agents—like Windows, Linux, Android, and iPhone—to identify where MFA is silently bypassed across critical Microsoft APIs such as Microsoft Graph, AAD Graph, and Azure Service Management. This lab session will demonstrate how red teamers can use NoPrompt to identify stealthy access vectors and how defenders can validate their Conditional Access enforcement across device types. Attendees will walk away with practical insight into modern identity attack surfaces and a free, open-source tool to test their own environments.

Outline:

This lab session will showcase NoPrompt, a lightweight tool that identifies where Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) APIs allow access with just a username and password—bypassing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or Conditional Access policies.

We’ll start with a quick overview of common Conditional Access misconfigurations in Azure, focusing on device-based enforcement gaps. Then, I’ll demonstrate how NoPrompt simulates OAuth2 token requests from various user agents (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS) to test if different Microsoft APIs—like Microsoft Graph, AAD Graph, and Azure Service Management—permit password-only access.

The live demo will reveal how attackers can exploit these gaps for stealthy access, and how defenders can use the tool to validate and strengthen their identity policies. We'll wrap up with takeaways, GitHub access, and Q&A.

Instructor: Saksham Agrawal

Instructor Bio: Senior Security Consultant at NotSoSecure where I dive into cloud penetration testing, audits, and red teaming across platforms like Azure and AWS. I love helping organizations uncover hidden gaps in their cloud defenses and build stronger, more resilient systems. My journey into security started back in high school with a curious fascination for hacking—I was that kid endlessly testing and learning. That passion led me into the professional world: I kicked things off as an AWS administrator, moved on to consulting at Payatu, and in 2024 landed at NotSoSecure. Along the way, I’ve developed cloud-focused labs, contributed to research, and picked up certifications like AZ‑500 and AZ‑104. What really drives me? Building tools and workflows that streamline the messy, real-world challenges of red teaming in the cloud. I’m always on the lookout for new attack routes and clever ways to turn them into learning opportunities. I’m excited to bring “NoPrompt” to DEF CON 33 and share how it can help streamline cloud-based operations for security professionals.

12.00 - 13.00

SESNSploit: Red Team Exploitation of AWS SES and SNS Misconfigurations

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Abstract:

SESNSploit is a dedicated red team exploitation tool targeting AWS Simple Email Service (SES) and Simple Notification Service (SNS) misconfigurations. While existing frameworks like Pacu offer minimal or no coverage for these services, SESNSploit fills this gap by providing comprehensive attack scenarios. This includes enumerating regions, listing topics and identities, sending unauthorized emails or messages, and simulating misconfiguration exploitation. The tool is designed for red teamers, security researchers, and cloud security professionals to assess and identify potential security weaknesses in AWS SES and SNS setups.

We have added few of the following key features:

- Enumeration of active SES and SNS regions.

- Identification of SES identities and SNS topics.

- Unauthorized message and email sending simulations.

- Menu-driven interface for easy navigation.

- Supports state-saving for efficient testing and resumption.

SESNSploit offers functionalities that major AWS exploitation frameworks like Pacu currently lack. It specifically focuses on SES and SNS, which are often overlooked in security assessments but can be critical entry points if misconfigured.

Github link : https://github.com/harekrishnarai/SESNSploit

Outline:

1. Introduction (5 min)

What are AWS SES (Simple Email Service) and SNS (Simple Notification Service)?

Why these services are often overlooked in cloud red team assessments

Brief background on how SESNSploit was born (Pacu didn't cover it)

2. Threat Modeling SES & SNS (5 min)

Real-world IAM misconfigurations (e.g., ses:*, sns:*, overly permissive roles)

Impact of abusing these permissions:

Sending spoofed emails

Notification flooding

Privilege escalation chains

3. Tool Walkthrough (10 min)

Overview of SESNSploit architecture and features

Menu-driven CLI structure

Supported modules:

enumerate_regions

list_sns_topics

list_ses_identities

send_spoofed_emails

publish_fake_alerts

Integration with AWS CLI & environment variables

4. Hands-on Lab Demo (20 min)

Lab Setup

Preconfigured vulnerable AWS IAM sandbox environment

Participants follow along or watch live execution

Scenarios Covered:

Identify exposed SES/SNS regions and identities

Send a spoofed email as a trusted AWS domain

Flood a target’s SMS/email pipeline via SNS abuse

Demonstrate chained abuse: Email alert injection + phishing delivery

Takeaways: Understanding the exploitability vs. misconfiguration gap

5. Defense & Detection Tips (5 min)

How blue teams can detect misuse

IAM least privilege practices

CloudTrail log snippets for detection

How SESNSploit can help blue teams simulate abuse for hardening

Instructor: Hare Krishna Rai & Gaurav Joshi

Instructor Bio: Hare Krishna Rai is a security researcher and red teamer with over three years of experience in software supply chain security, cloud exploitation, and offensive security tooling. He was volunteer at cloud village in RSA Conf 2025, he has presented at top-tier conferences including Black Hat Europe, Blackhat asia, DEF CON, c0c0n, and NullCon.

Gaurav Joshi is a security engineer with a strong focus on cloud and network security. He has experience in threat modeling, secure development practices, and hardening misconfigured cloud services. As a co-developer of SESNSploit, he contributes to identifying and operationalizing real-world misconfigurations in AWS environments.

11.00 - 13.00

Hacking Kubernetes

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Abstract:

With the ever-increasing popularity of Kubernetes, whether Red or Blue Team should know how hackers approach hacking Kubernetes environments. Many are scared off by the complexity of Kubernetes, which often leads to significant flaws in Kubernetes security.

This workshop will focus on the most common misconfigurations, how to exploit and secure them. Each workshop participant will get access to a Kubernetes cluster and an attack server from which the attacks can be executed.

Each section of the workshop starts with an introduction to the topic by the trainer. Afterwards, various scenarios and configurations seen in the wild by the trainer are shown and discussed. Last but not least, the participants can perform CTF style tasks and gain hands-on experience with Kubernetes Security before the next topic is introduced.

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to recognize, assess and mitigate certain Kubernetes security misconfigurations. They will have gained practical experience and will be aware of potential security risks that can occur in a Kubernetes environment.

Specific topics covered:

- Kubernetes Core Components

- Role Based Access

- Admission Control

Software Requirements:

A working SSH client

Instructor: Benjamin Koltermann

Instructor Bio: Benjamin Koltermann is CEO and Security Architect for Cloud and Kubernetes environments at KolTEQ. He works on various projects for large regulated organizations, enabling them to securely manage the transformation to the cloud and Kubernetes. He spends his free time playing CTF for FluxFingers and Sauercloud. He is also a Co-Author of the Kubernetes DEFCON CTF since 2024.

13.30 - 15.30

Exploiting Public AWS Resources

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Abstract:

You like hacking public cloud services? In this workshop we will hack most of the relevant AWS services that can be hacked without prior credentials. Where applicable, there will be multiple and differently misconfigured resources for each service.

What you need:

Laptop with AWS CLI version 2 installed (UNIX terminal is recommended)

Tools: jq, terraform/opentofu, docker, coldsnap, mysql, CloudShovel

Your own AWS account to launch attacks from

To maximize the number of hacker resources, participants will get a playbook to follow if they want. The structure of the workshop is: short demo section followed by hands-on hacking and ending with Q&A.

Let's hack some cloud!

Instructor: Eduard Agavriloae

16.00 - 18.00

Kubernetes Security: Hands-On Attack and Defense

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Abstract:

Kubernetes is the de facto operating system of the cloud, and more and more organizations are running their workloads on Kubernetes. While Kubernetes offers many benefits, new users may introduce security risks like cluster misconfiguration, leaked credentials, cryptojacking, container escapes, and vulnerable clusters.

This workshop will teach you the fundamentals of Kubernetes security, from protecting your cluster to securing your workloads. You'll learn about RBAC, OPA, Security Contexts, Network Policies, and other security features. You'll also learn how to exploit workloads running on a Kubernetes environment using Living Off the Land (LotL) techniques like exploiting Insecure APIs, Secrets Theft, Container Escape and Pod Privilege Escalation, similar to the ones used by real-world threat actors.

This workshop is designed for both beginners and advanced students. By the end of the workshop, you'll have a deep understanding of Kubernetes security and the skills to protect your clusters and workloads

Outline:

1. A quick, 20-minute introduction to Kubernetes - https://github.com/Alevsk/dvka/blob/master/workshop/resources/Kubernetes%20Security_%20Attacking%20And%20Defending%20Modern%20Infrastructure.pdf

2. All labs in the beginner section - https://github.com/Alevsk/dvka/blob/master/workshop/README.md#-beginner

3. Challenge 1: Hack The NFT Museum - https://github.com/Alevsk/dvka/tree/master/challenge-1

Instructor: Lenin Alevski

Instructor Bio: Lenin Alevski is a Full Stack Engineer and generalist with a lot of passion for Information Security. Currently working as a Security Engineer at Google. Lenin specializes in building and maintaining Distributed Systems, Application Security and Cloud Security in general. Lenin loves to play CTFs, contributing to open-source and writing about security and privacy on his personal blog https://www.alevsk.com.

11.00 - 13.00

Kubernetes Security Scanner

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Abstract:

Modern clusters are a moving target: new images ship hourly, nodes drift from their golden state, and runtime threats appear without warning. Kubernetes Security Scanner gives you one keyboard shortcut to see it all—and this hands‑on workshop teaches you how.

The tool runs a full‑stack inspection in minutes and organizes findings into five actionable domains:

Cluster Setup & Hardening – benchmarks every control‑plane and node flag against CIS, highlights risky admission‑controller and RBAC settings, and maps network‑policy blind spots.

System Hardening – validates kernel parameters, kubelet options, container‑runtime and gVisor profiles to keep the host layer sealed tight.

Microservice Vulnerability Reduction – enforces least‑privilege at pod and container level by checking security contexts, resource limits, disruption budgets, and secrets hygiene.

Supply‑Chain Security – blocks bad code before it ships by verifying image signatures and SBOMs, scanning for CVEs and license red flags, and flagging stale or untrusted artifacts.

Runtime Security – confirms audit‑policy coverage, validates Falco rules and alert paths, and streams suspicious events so you can react in real time.

Attendees will deploy the scanner against a vulnerable “Kubernetes Goat” cluster, interpret it's reports, and remediate high‑impact issues live. By the end of the session you’ll leave with a repeatable workflow that delivers prescriptive, line‑item fixes from cluster creation through day‑2 operations—no guesswork, just secure‑by‑design Kubernetes.

Outline:

0) Bootstrap & Check‑in — 10 min

• Clone kubernetes‑goat repo, run setup script, verify cluster, install scanner.

1) Kick‑off & Threat Lens — 10 min

• Overview of K8s attack paths and how the scanner covers CIS, supply‑chain, and runtime checks.

2) Baseline Scan & Report Walk‑through — 20 min

• Run full scan (`scanner scan --all --output html`), open report, flag three High findings.

3) Focused Remediation Sprint — 35 min

• Fix admission‑controller gaps & RBAC wildcards.

• Add NetworkPolicy for Goat namespace.

• Apply PodSecurityContext and resource limits.

• Re‑scan and compare results.

4) Supply‑Chain & Runtime Quick Hits — 20 min

• Detect unsigned vs. signed images with Cosign.

• Install Falco rules, trigger reverse shell, observe alert.

5) Extended Security Checks — 10 min

• NodeHardeningChecker: verify kernel params, kubelet secure flags.

• SecretsManagementChecker: find plain‑text secrets, enable encryption.

• AuditChecker: confirm audit policy, back‑end, and log retention.

• Adding new features to the Scanner

6) Wrap‑Up & Q&A — 5 min

• Summarize remediations, share lab repo links, collect questions.

Buffer — 10 min

Instructor: Krishna Priya

Instructor Bio: Senior SRE engineer at Cloud Software Group. I have worked on on premise and cloud deployments and have seen the industry evolve to its current state. I have been advocating for better secure defaults and secure deployments for over a decade and have created training material for engineers and tooling that can help automate this. You can see my open source work @ https://github.com/krishpyishere/

13:30 - 14:45

Doing bad things for the right reasons: Vulnerability Disclosure at Amazon and AWS

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Abstract:

Ever had questions about how to report a vulnerability to Amazon or AWS, and what actually happens after you click “submit”? You’re not alone. With cloud services powering so much of what we use every day, making it easy and collaborative to report security issues helps strengthen the whole ecosystem.

In this session, members of the Amazon and AWS Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP) and Amazon Vulnerability Research Program (VRP) teams will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how these programs operate, the types of issues in scope, and a new initiative aimed at deepening collaboration with the security research community.

We’ll cover what makes a strong vulnerability report, how to submit it through the appropriate channels, and what to expect throughout the process, from triage to resolution. Attendees will also gain insight into how Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) is approached, along with how public disclosure decisions are made in collaboration with researchers.

Whether you’re an experienced researcher or just starting out, this talk will give you practical knowledge and a clearer understanding of how to engage with Amazon and AWS, and how we’re working to make that experience even better.

Instructor: Ryan Nolette, Albin Vattakattu, Wesley, Justin and Kasimir Schulz

Instructor Bio: AWS security experts Ryan, Albin Vattakattu, Wesley, and Justin bring together decades of combined experience across threat hunting, incident response, bug bounty management, and security research. This dynamic team includes Ryan, an AWS Senior Security Engineer and co-author of AWS Detective, Albin, a technical lead for AWS’s Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP) team, while Wesley and Justin serve on Amazon’s Bug Bounty Team managing vulnerability reports and researcher relations. Joining them as a guest speaker is Kasimir Schulz, Director of Security Research at HiddenLayer and active AWS VDP researcher, whose pioneering work in AI security has been featured in major tech publications and conferences like Black Hat. Together, they represent expertise spanning threat research, vulnerability management, offensive security, and the development of cutting-edge security tools and automation.

15.00 - 17.00

Conversational Security engineering across your aws cloud infrastructure

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Abstract:

AWS Security MCP(Model Context Protocol) Server - is a tool I've built that fundamentally changes how security teams interact with their AWS environments. Instead of wrestling with the AWS CLI or sifting through thousands of findings from traditional scanners, you can simply talk to your AWS infrastructure using natural language.

This project connects AI assistants like Claude directly to your AWS account, enabling you to:

github link - https://github.com/groovyBugify/aws-security-mcp

1. Instantly locate resources by IP, tag, name or any attribute across your entire infrastructure

2. Generate threat models on-demand for specific services or team resources

3. Visualize attack paths and potential privilege escalation routes

4. Perform blast radius analysis to understand the impact of potential compromises

5. Seamlessly search across GuardDuty, SecurityHub, and IAM Access Analyzer findings

6. Ask natural questions like "Which EC2 instances have public IPs and excessive IAM permissions?"

We will also be covering how we designed the tool to maintain context and token size limits for any MCP Clients.

During my years leading cloud security and bug bounty hunting, I've repeatedly faced the frustration of piecing together information scattered across multiple AWS services. This tool solves that problem by providing a conversation layer that maintains context across your entire infrastructure.

In this talk, I'll demonstrate real-world scenarios where AWS Security MCP helped identify complex security issues that traditional tools missed. For instance, discovering a privilege escalation path that crossed boundaries between EC2, IAM, and S3 which appeared as low-severity individual findings but created a critical attack path when combined.

I'll show how you can:

1. Instantly identify which team owns a mysterious IP address appearing in your logs

2. Visualize the network connectivity between your microservices

3. Generate security assessments for resources tagged to specific applications

4. Uncover hidden attack paths by analyzing IAM permission chains

The tool is open-source and available today - you can start using it immediately after the talk to gain deeper insights into your own AWS environments

Instructor: Saransh Rana

Instructor Bio: Senior Security Engineer at CRED, working on solving Infrastructure Security problems!

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