Significant security flaws have been discovered in Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, allowing attackers to easily acquire administrative-level permissions and bypass access controls. These “confused deputy” vulnerabilities, also known as CWE-114, are a type of weakness that has persisted for nearly 40 years since their discovery by computer scientist Norm Hardy in the late 1980s.
Justin O’Leary, an independent security researcher, first reported these flaws to both companies earlier this year. Despite his efforts, neither Google nor Microsoft acknowledged the vulnerabilities or paid out bug-bounty rewards. However, it appears that Microsoft has silently patched its flaw. O’Leary will detail the issue further in an on-demand session at Black Hat USA 2026 next week.
The confused deputy flaws arise when a product or service receives a request from an upstream entity but fails to preserve the original source of the request and even allows it to be forwarded to external parties. A threat actor can trick a high-privileged entity into accepting the request, which appears as if it’s coming from the original product or service and allows the attacker to bypass access controls such as firewalls.
One of the vulnerabilities involves Microsoft’s Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) backup service, which uses a feature called Trusted Access to give the backup vault access to the AKS cluster through specific, assigned permissions. However, O’Leary found that an attacker can exploit a confused deputy flaw to escalate privileges from a basic Backup Contributor level to achieve cluster-admin privileges for the AKS. With such access, the attacker can exfiltrate sensitive data from backups or deploy malicious workloads to any cluster in the network.
The second vulnerability involves Config Connector, an open source add-on that lets users manage their Google cloud resources via Kubernetes. According to O’Leary’s research, Config Connector doesn’t perform authorization checks to confirm the user’s identity against Google’s IAM, bypassing the platform’s access controls. This allows a threat actor equipped with basic Kubernetes namespace access and no GCP permissions to use Config Connector to quickly establish themselves as GCP Organization Owner with full administrative control.
The persistence of confused deputy flaws in modern cloud architectures is attributed by O’Leary to companies following a “cookie-cutter approach” when building these infrastructures. This has led to fundamental weaknesses being introduced into the systems, rather than isolated bugs.
As a result of these vulnerabilities, enterprise and government resources may be at risk. The lack of acknowledgment from Google and Microsoft raises concerns about their commitment to security and transparency. It is essential for cloud providers to take proactive measures to address these issues and ensure that their customers’ sensitive data is protected. For users, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest security threats and take steps to secure their cloud environments.
To mitigate the risks associated with confused deputy flaws, users should implement robust access controls, monitor audit logs closely, and regularly review and update permissions. By being aware of these vulnerabilities and taking proactive measures, organizations can reduce the likelihood of falling victim to a confused deputy attack.
Source: Dark Reading — 2026-07-27