AI Cyber Defense / Cloud, Kubernetes and software supply chain
AI Cyber Defense: Protect cloud backup retention from privileged deletion
Use supported retention protection with separated administration and tested recovery access. Verify key availability and the consequences of any irreversible retention settings before production changes.
Environment and inputs: Cloud control planes, workload identity, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines and immutable deployment artifacts; provider support varies.
Scenario and goal
Recovery copies may be removable by the same identity that controls the affected production account.
Why it matters
For this scenario, an attacker can automate permitted API operations after gaining a workload or pipeline identity. Review who can change trust, who can assume the resulting identity and what resources it can reach. Keep source review, build provenance, deployment authorization and runtime permissions as distinct checks. A configuration object or successful deployment does not prove the intended runtime boundary is enforced.
Evidence to collect
Review retention configuration, delete permissions, encryption-key access and cross-account or cross-region dependencies.
Validate with an authorized exercise
Restore a disposable dataset and check integrity; verify a restricted test production identity cannot delete the protected recovery copy or disable the required recovery key.
Rollout and checks
Evaluate effective permissions and runtime behavior in a disposable account or namespace before production rollout. Retain the approved source revision, resulting artifact and independent audit trail. Plan recovery if identity, policy or admission dependencies fail. Reconcile running assets after the change because resources created outside the normal pipeline can otherwise remain outside its checks.
Scope and limits
This guide proposes a defensive test; it is not a tested production design. Check platform support and local requirements. References explain the mechanisms but do not certify the design. Behavior alone does not prove AI involvement.