Firewalls provided by Amazon, Google and Microsoft as part of their cloud service offerings are vulnerable to a significant number of known exploit tactics, according to the latest test results from nonprofit cyber assessment firm CyberRatings.org.
“Until cloud native firewalls demonstrate they have a higher level of security effectiveness to protect against cyber threats, we strongly recommend that customers consider third-party providers with a proven track record,” CyberRatings CEO Vikram Phatak said in a Tuesday release.
The nonprofit’s latest report dives into the cyber defense capabilities of firewalls built into the infrastructure of the “Big Three” cloud service providers.
“In today’s cloud-centric environment, businesses often face a critical choice regarding the security of their cloud infrastructure. They can rely on firewalls offered directly by Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) or use independent security vendor firewall offerings typically available through the respective CSP’s marketplace,” the report says.
The report explains, “Security effectiveness is a crucial factor in selecting the right firewall solution, as it directly impacts the organization’s ability to protect against cyber threats. This makes objective testing essential to ensure firewalls are protecting as expected.”
The nonprofit tested the Amazon Web Services network firewall, the Microsoft Azure “Firewall Premium” service and the “Google Cloud [Next-Generation Firewall] Enterprise Firewall” against 522 known exploits from the widely used Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures library.
The report says, “We used exploits from the last ten years, focusing on attacks with a severity of medium or higher. The attacks used included those targeting enterprise applications that businesses may be running and that could potentially be migrated to a cloud platform.”
The AWS firewall only blocked two of the 522 exploits, for a success rate of just 0.38 percent. Microsoft’s firewall, meanwhile, blocked just under a quarter of exploits, and Google’s native firewall offering was compromised by nearly half of the exploits.
The report notes, “The results of this particular test should not be construed as representative of the overall effectiveness or capabilities of the firewall platforms tested.”
Phatak emphasized that the test was designed to be “entry level.” He said, “The exploits were straightforward; we didn't apply any evasions which is normally how attackers bypass security products. The number of missed exploits is concerning.”
CyberRatings notes the latest results come from the “first phase” of a two-part testing effort. The release explains, “Part two will include a higher number of exploits, along with evasions and malware. The second part of the test will also compare cloud service provider native solutions against market leading third-party cloud network firewall providers.” -- Jacob Livesay (jlivesay@iwpnews.com)