Plaintext with Rich
Cybersecurity is an everyone problem. So why does it always sound like it’s only for IT people?
Each week, Rich takes one topic, from phishing to ransomware to how your phone actually tracks you, and explains it in plain language in under ten minutes or less. No buzzwords. No condescension. Just the stuff you need to know to stay safer online, explained like you’re a smart person who never had anyone break it down properly. Because you are!
Plaintext with Rich
Cloud Security Without The Panic
A breach without a break-in sounds strange until you realize the cloud rarely fails with drama it fails with defaults. We walk through why identity has replaced the physical perimeter, how ordinary configuration decisions create extraordinary risks, and what actually happens once an attacker lands. No scare tactics, just a clear path from common pitfalls to practical fixes you can deploy this week.
We start by translating the cloud into plain terms: rented compute, storage, and identity systems you control through configuration. From there, we map the usual failure modes public buckets, over-permissioned roles, secrets sprawled across repos and chats, and powerful accounts without MFA. We also explain shadow cloud, where teams spin up SaaS and resources beyond central oversight, and why weak monitoring means the first alert often comes from a bill or a phone call, not your console. When attackers get in, they follow a simple playbook: take data, abuse compute for crypto mining, and establish persistence by adding users, keys, and altered logs.
You’ll leave with a focused starter kit to prevent most incidents: enforce MFA on admins, email, and SSO; apply least privilege with time-bound elevation; replace long-lived secrets with short-lived tokens and managed identities; make storage private by default; and turn on logging with high-signal alerts for new admins, disabled MFA, unusual locations, and large downloads. We then go deeper into hardening workloads, pruning unused services, limiting inbound access, and treating APIs like locked doors with authentication, rate limits, and validation. Finally, we show how policy-as-code and cloud posture tools create guardrails that block unsafe deployments before they happen, acknowledging that speed and pressure are constants and designing for containment.
If this breakdown clarified your next steps, follow the show, share it with a teammate who owns a risky bucket, and leave a quick review so more builders can secure their cloud without the panic.
Is there a topic/term you want me to discuss next? Text me!!
Nothing broke, nothing crashed, no alarms went off. Someone clicked a box, someone skipped a setting, someone assumed the default was safe, and the cloud did exactly what it was told. Welcome to plain text with Rich. Today we're talking about cloud security. Let's really start by grounding the term. In plain text, the cloud is not magic. It's simply computers you don't necessarily own, running in buildings you don't really visit, managed by someone else and rented by the minute. Servers, storage, databases, applications, identity systems. Cloud security is simply the practice of making sure those rented computers only do what you intend them to do and nothing more. And here's the part that changes everything. In the cloud, identity is the perimeter. There is no fence, no lobby, no locked server room. If someone has valid credentials, they don't break in, they simply sign in. Which means cloud security succeeds or fails long before an attacker ever really shows up. It succeeds or fails at configuration time. So how does cloud security usually go wrong? Now, not through clever exploits or cinematic attacks, though they do happen sometimes. It goes wrong through ordinary decisions made under pressure. The most common failure is misconfigured storage. Buckets, drives, or databases get set to public often accidentally. No theft is required. The data is simply reachable. The internet doesn't need to guess, it just shows. Another frequent problem is over permissioned identities. People and applications are given broad access just to keep things moving. Admin rights become convenience tools instead of emergency tools. Now that shortcut feels harmless right up until it isn't. Secrets, leak, right, is another repeat offender. API keys committed to code repositories, credentials pasted in the chat tools, tokens stored in documents or logs. In the cloud, keys are access. Lose the key, lose the boundary. Then there's the absence of multi-factor authentication on powerful accounts. One compromised email, one reused password. Suddenly, an entire environment is exposed. Not because defenses failed, but because they were never turned on. Shadow Cloud adds another layer. Teams adopt SaaS or software as a service tools or spin up cloud resources outside of visibility. The organization's footprint expands, but the oversight never did. Security gaps appear not from verbellion, but from speed. And finally, hey, simply there's monitoring, or more accurately, the lack of it. Many cloud environments are compromised quietly. The first signal isn't an alert. It's a building anomaly or missing data or an uncomfortable external phone call. So, what do attackers actually do once they are in? Usually one of three things. They take data, you know, customer records, internal documents, source code, or backups. They'll abuse compute power. Crypto mining is popular because it's automated and profitable. You pay the bill, they keep the coins. Or they will entrench themselves. New users are created, access keys are added, logs are altered, persistence is established. Again, convenience cuts both ways. The same features that make cloud fast for teams also make it pretty efficient for attackers. So let's shift from failure to prevention. This is going to be our, we'll call it our plain text cloud security starter kit. If we do nothing else, we'll start with these five. First, protect identity with multi-factor authentication, especially for your cloud administrators, your email, your single sign-on accounts. No multi-factor authentication on powerful identities is not a trade-off, it's a gap. Second, enforce lease privilege by default. People and applications should only have the access they need for only as long as they need it. Administrative access should be deliberate, temporary, and visible. Walking around with full access all the time, again, isn't efficiency, it's potential exposure. Third, reduce long-lived secrets, prefer short-lived tokens and managed identities. Rotate credentials, scan code repositories for exposed keys. Because once a secret leaves your control, you simply have to assume it's compromised. Fourth, we want to lock down that storage. Private by default, public only when required, audited regularly. Exposure should be intentional, not accidental. And fifth, turn on logging and alerts. You need visibility into sign-ins, permission changes, key creation, and data access. And you need alerts for the things that matter. New admin accounts, MFA disabled, unusual locations, unexpected downloads. If you can't see it, you can't respond to it. Beyond those, harden what runs inside the cloud. We want to keep workloads updated, remove unused services, limit inbound access, avoid opening things to the world unless there is a clear reason. APIs are going to deserve special attention. They are, in theory, just doors. They should have or need authentication, rate limiting, and some type of validation. Convenience should never be confused with safety. Finally, build some guardrails. Use cloud posture tools and policies to prevent unsafe deployments before they happen. Good cloud security doesn't rely on perfect behavior. It assumes mistakes and contains them. Which brings us to our reality check. The cloud is not less secure than traditional environments. In many ways, it can be more secure, but it is dramatically easier to misconfigure at scale. Small mistakes spread fast, defaults matter, speed amplifies impact. Cloud incidents often aren't hacks, they are missets. So the winning mindset is simple. Assume humans will move fast, assume pressure will exist, design systems that prevent those moments from becoming incidents. That's cloud security. Cloud security is mostly about identity and configuration. If you focus on MFA, least privilege, secret hygiene, private storage and visibility, you prevent the majority of cloud disasters. Again, not with fear, not with heroics, but with intention. And now, if there's a security topic you want broken down in plain text, again, please send it my way. Email me, DM me, drop it in the comments, however you choose to, right? However you reach me, I will read it and I will respond. If this episode helped, share it with someone who'd actually benefit. This has been Plain Text with Rich. 10 minutes or less, one topic, no panic. I'll see you next time.