Cloud control panel (control plane): what it is and how it is attacked
The website and commands used to configure the cloud itself, as opposed to the systems running inside it.
Also known as
- control plane
- management console
- cloud portal
- cloud API
- management plane
Typing any of them into the editor finds this object.
Why it matters on a security diagram
This is the difference between a cloud diagram and a network diagram. It answers to who you are signed in as rather than where you are connecting from, it is reachable from anywhere in the world by design, and one change made here can undo every network control drawn elsewhere on the page.
How it gets attacked, and what reduces it
How it gets attacked
- Reached from any location, because the network controls on the diagram do not apply to it
- Long-lived keys that carry the same power as the sign-in page without any of its checks
- Changes made through it that leave no trace on the systems they affect
What reduces it
- Sign-in rules on it, since this is the perimeter and the firewall rules are not
- Replace long-lived keys with short-lived, issued identities wherever the platform allows
- Record control-plane changes separately from the systems they alter
Where it sits
- Group
- Cloud and subscribed services · Things that only exist because somebody else runs the platform underneath them.
- Whose side, by default
- Ours · Belongs to the organisation the diagram is about.
- Catalogue identifier
- cloud-control-plane
Reviewed . CC BY 4.0.
Others in cloud and subscribed services
- Cloud platformAWS · Azure · GCP · Google Cloud · public cloud · hyperscaler · IaaSA supplier's computing platform, rented by the hour, where a setting made on a website creates or removes a whole system.
- AI model endpointLLM API · inference endpoint · model service · AI serviceWhere an application sends a question, along with documents, images or data, to an AI model and gets an answer back.
- Cloud accountsubscription · project · AWS account · Azure subscription · Google Cloud project · cloud environmentOne named compartment of a cloud platform, with its own bill and its own list of who may change what.
- Cloud account groupmanagement group · AWS Organizations · GCP folder · landing zone · account structureThe parent that owns all of an organisation's cloud accounts and can set rules over every one of them.
- Supplier-run applicationSaaS · software as a service · cloud application · business applicationAn application a supplier runs entirely, which the organisation subscribes to and puts its data into.
- Connected appOAuth application · app registration · enterprise application · app consent · add-inAn outside program that somebody has allowed to reach company data on their behalf.
- Managed databaseRDS · Azure SQL · Cloud SQL · database as a service · DBaaSA database the cloud provider runs, where the data and the settings are yours but the machine is never touched.
- On-demand functionserverless · Lambda · Azure Functions · Cloud Run · FaaSA small piece of code that runs only when something asks for it, with no server to look after.
- Container platformKubernetes · K8s · cluster · EKS · AKS · GKE · OpenShiftThe system that decides where each packaged application runs, and starts it again when it stops.
- Container image storecontainer registry · image registry · ECR · ACR · artefact storeThe library of packaged applications that machines fetch from whenever they start something.
- Infrastructure blueprintinfrastructure as code · IaC · Terraform · state file · CloudFormation · BicepThe written description of what the cloud should contain, together with the record of what was actually built.
The cloud and subscribed services group lists all 12 of them side by side.
Cloud control panel on your own diagram
Open the editor, press N, and type control plane. The object is placed and connected to whatever was selected, and Tab adds the next one already joined to it. Nothing is uploaded: the page is served with a Content Security Policy that forbids the browser from making any outbound request at all.
Open the diagram maker