Beyond AWS Credentials: Why the Codefinger Attack Changes Cloud Storage Security

The recent Codefinger ransomware attack targeting AWS S3 buckets highlights something I've been discussing with security teams for years: native cloud security features can be turned against you. This isn't a new vulnerability - it's a fundamental flaw in how we approach cloud storage security. 

Let's get technical about what's happening. 

The Mechanics of Codefinger  

Codefinger exploits AWS's Server-Side Encryption with Customer Provided Keys (SSE-C) along with S3's lifecycle policies. These are standard features meant to protect your data. But when attackers gain access to your AWS account - something made increasingly simple through shadow resource attacks - they can use these same features to lock you out of your own data. 

Most concerning? This attack is practically impossible to detect until it's too late. Traditional monitoring tools like CloudFront can't identify this behavior quickly enough because it uses legitimate AWS APIs. An attacker can modify thousands of objects per API call, encrypting your data before any alerts trigger. 

The False Promise of Multiple Backups  

Many organizations respond to threats like this by creating more backup copies or adding security layers. This approach fails for two reasons: 

First, you're replicating the same vulnerability across multiple locations. If an attacker can compromise one copy through AWS credentials, they can compromise them all. 

Second, the costs compound rapidly. When you version-control a dataset using AWS's immutability features, a 500GB object becomes 1TB after one change, then 1.5TB, and so on. At terabyte scale, you're paying multiple times for the same data without adding meaningful protection. 

Why AWS Can't Fix This  

This isn't a code vulnerability that AWS can patch. It's a fundamental issue with the shared responsibility model. While AWS provides security tools, the responsibility for protecting data and managing identities always falls to the customer. The problem isn't with AWS's controls - it's that attackers can bypass them using legitimate configuration options. 

Rethinking Cloud Storage Security  

The solution requires separating the control plane from the data plane. When your encryption keys, lifecycle policies, and administrative controls live in the same environment as your data, compromising one means compromising all. 

This is why we built Myota differently. By removing lifecycle policy management from AWS and placing it in a separate control plane, even root-level AWS account compromise can't impact your data. Our approach shards data across multiple locations, making individual pieces useless to attackers. More importantly, we use zero-proof encryption with distributed keys - meaning encryption secrets are never fully exposed in any single location. 

Moving Forward  

For organizations using AWS S3, implement immediate protections through IAM policies and access controls. But recognize these are stopgap measures. The future of cloud storage security demands architectural changes that separate administrative controls from data controls. 

The Code Finger attack isn't remarkable because it's novel - it's remarkable because it exposes how vulnerable traditional approaches to cloud storage security have become. As more organizations move to object storage, understanding both its capabilities and limitations becomes critical. 

Securing cloud storage isn't about adding more copies or stronger perimeter controls. It's about fundamentally changing how we protect and control access to data. Otherwise, we're just giving attackers more targets.