Federated Cloud Security: A Modern Approach to Securing Cloud Access
As organizations increasingly adopt multi-cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP, managing secure access to resources becomes more complex. The traditional approach of using long-lived access keys and API keys poses significant security risks, such as unauthorized access, key leakage, and inefficient management.
Cloud federation offers a modern solution to this problem, replacing static keys with short-lived, role-based tokens. This approach dramatically reduces the attack surface and simplifies cross-cloud access management.
To help you implement cloud federation, we’ve provided a dedicated GitHub repository with Terraform scripts and video tutorials to get you started quickly and easily.
Sneak Peek: Clutch Federator In Action
In this demo, we showcase Clutch Federator, an Open Source project, which automates the setup of cloud federation across AWS, GCP, and Azure. Clutch Federator creates role federation, which enables secure, temporary access across multiple cloud environments without long-lived keys. Read on to learn about Clutch Federator and the significance of cloud federation.
How It’s Done Today
API Keys and Access Keys
Most organizations still rely on API keys or access keys embedded within applications to manage access to cloud resources. These keys are often:
- Hardcoded in configurations or stored in plain text, making them vulnerable to exposure.
- Manually rotated or, in many cases, left unmonitored, providing attackers prolonged access if compromised.
- Over-permissioned, granting more access than necessary, often across multiple cloud services.
Why This is a Problem
- Easily compromised: API keys can be leaked, stolen, or accidentally shared in code repositories, leaving critical resources exposed.
- Lack of expiry: Once compromised, these static keys remain valid until manually rotated, giving attackers potentially indefinite access.
- Complex and error-prone: Managing keys across cloud environments is difficult, often resulting in misconfigurations or security gaps.
The Modern Approach: Cloud Federation
Introducing Clutch Federator
With Federator, teams can configure secure interconnectivity across their different cloud service providers (CSPs) using OpenID Connect (OIDC). This allows for a secure inter-cloud connectivity without relying on the use of static keys and secrets.
The resources in the Federator project include Terraform files and detailed step-by-step tutorials, which empower security and engineering teams to transition from static, long-lived NHIs to ephemeral ones—drastically reducing their attack surface and strengthening their overall security posture.
With Federator you can:
- Replace long-lived API keys with short-lived, role-based tokens that automatically expire, significantly reducing the window of opportunity for attackers.
- Simplify cross-cloud access by using a centralized, role-based system to manage access across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
- Automate access management using Terraform, ensuring consistent security practices across all cloud providers.
Federator leverages the concept of cloud federation, which enhances security and streamlines access by using ephemeral tokens that are generated dynamically, reducing the risks associated with static credentials.
Get Started: Explore the Federator GitHub Repo
To help you implement cloud federation quickly, we’ve created a dedicated GitHub repository. It includes:
- Terraform scripts to automate the deployment of federated roles across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
- Asciinema video guides to walk you through the setup process step by step.