How CrowdStrike Traces Attack Paths to Sensitive Data in the Cloud

As identity abuse and misconfigurations fuel a rise in cloud breaches, defenders need more than visibility, they need a blueprint to stop attackers before they reach high-value data.

As organizations adopt hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, the attack surface quickly expands, often outpacing defender’s ability to see and stop threats. This growing complexity fuels risk — creating blind spots adversaries exploit through cloud misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and unpatched vulnerabilities. These conditions allow attackers to break in, move laterally, and gain higher levels of access. 

Identity and permission misuse has become central to modern adversary tradecraft. Valid account abuse has become the leading initial access vector to the cloud, accounting for 35% of cloud incidents in the first half of 2024, the CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report states. Groups like SCATTERED SPIDER and LABYRINTH CHOLLIMA often begin with stolen credentials then escalate into cloud environments to exfiltrate business-critical data.

Attack Path Analysis, built into CrowdStrike Falcon® Cloud Security, reveals how adversaries can move through cloud environments and maps potential attack paths so teams can block them before a breach occurs. It uses vulnerability data from CrowdStrike Falcon® Exposure Management to trace lateral movement across hybrid environments and identify the paths leading to business-critical systems and data. Attack Path Analysis is generally available to customers of both Falcon Cloud Security and Falcon Exposure Management.

As organizations expand their use of the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform to protect cloud and on-premises environments, this capability delivers deeper context to help security teams uncover and eliminate risk with greater precision.

How to Centralize and Manage Cloud Risk

The Attack Path Analysis dashboard is the command center for identifying where defenders should focus first. It highlights the attack paths that create the highest organizational risk based on asset sensitivity, exploitability, and complexity, including paths that terminate at resources storing sensitive data.

Each attack path includes detailed contributing factors such as exploitable vulnerabilities, identity misconfigurations, and overly permissive network settings. This consolidated view helps teams evaluate which paths pose the greatest risk to critical services and sensitive information. With this centralized view of potential attack paths, security teams can make more informed and confident decisions to strengthen their security posture.

Figure 1. Attack Path Analysis dashboard in the Falcon console Figure 1. Attack Path Analysis dashboard in the Falcon console (click to open in new window)

Trace the Adversary’s Movement

Attack Path Analysis maps how adversaries could move through the cloud by identifying the most exploitable path from an internet-exposed asset to a sensitive or privileged target.

As shown in Figure 2, these visual paths could show how a compromised cloud server could lead to the exposure of data-rich workloads, such as cloud storage buckets containing customer records or financial data.

Figure 2. A cloud attack path to a sensitive data resource Figure 2. A cloud attack path to a sensitive data resource (click to open in new window)

By highlighting the path with the highest risk, Attack Path Analysis enables defenders to assess how risks extend across their cloud environment and then break key connections that could lead to sensitive data compromise. 

These risks include unpatched, high-priority vulnerabilities. To improve precision, Attack Path Analysis highlights predictors of attack, which are vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited based on real-world threat intelligence. These insights are prioritized by ExPRT.AI, a capability powered by Falcon Exposure Management that evaluates each issue using factors like exploitability, asset importance, and threat activity. By surfacing these risks directly within the attack path, security teams can focus on remediating the vulnerabilities most likely to lead to a breach.

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Prioritize and Remediate Threats

Attack Path Analysis doesn’t just identify problems — it equips defenders with the steps needed to fix the problems fast. Security teams can quickly pinpoint high-impact remediation actions, including several low-effort options, to break attack chains before adversaries reach critical data or assets.

Within the Falcon console, teams are guided through clear, actionable steps to address the issues that would allow an adversary to traverse their environment. These actions may include tightening IAM policies, closing misconfigured ports, or patching critical vulnerabilities. 

Figure 3. Guided remediation in the Falcon Cloud Security console Figure 3. Guided remediation in the Falcon Cloud Security console (click to open in new window)
While Attack Path Analysis is built for proactive risk reduction, it also supports real-time response. This capability makes it easier to identify containment points and accelerate response to prevent damage. Defenders can isolate vulnerable assets using built-in actions, reducing the risk of data exfiltration across cloud and on-premises environments.
Figure 4. The Falcon console showing a containment action Figure 4. The Falcon console showing a containment action (click to open in new window)

Stop Breaches Before they Start

CrowdStrike Attack Path Analysis enables:

  • Complete visibility into real attack paths across cloud and on-premises resources, including pathways leading to sensitive or regulated data.
  • Prioritized risk insights based on exploitability, asset sensitivity, and exposure to fix the most critical issues first
  • Remediation guidance to quickly break high-risk attack chains before adversaries reach the most valuable data

Attack Path Analysis gives security teams a powerful tool to reduce risk with targeted, context-driven remediation focused on preventing data compromise.

Falcon Cloud Security with Attack Path Analysis is built to protect not just infrastructure but the sensitive data adversaries are after. By combining visibility, prioritization, and guided remediation, Attack Path Analysis empowers security teams to stay ahead of threats, harden their hybrid environments, and prevent data theft before it happens.

Additional Resources

  • Learn more about CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security.
  • Learn more about CrowdStrike Falcon Exposure Management.
  • See why Forrester named CrowdStrike a Leader in the Forrester Wave: Attack Surface Management Solutions.
  • Contact us today to find out how Attack Path Analysis can help you identify, prioritize, and remediate risk — and ultimately, stop breaches before they happen.

CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report

CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report

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