misconfigurations

Misconfigurations are incorrect or insecure settings in hardware, software, or services that depart from an established secure baseline, introducing risk that can be exploited, leaked, or disrupted.

Causes include human error, rushed deployments, inadequate configuration management, default credentials, excessive privileges, and inconsistent hardening across environments. They appear in IT infrastructure (servers, databases, network devices), cloud environments, software applications (auth, logging, error handling), and IoT or industrial systems.

Impacts include data exposure, unauthorized access, privilege escalation, outages, and regulatory noncompliance. In many sectors, misconfigurations are a leading cause of security incidents and cloud misadventures.

Detection and remediation: maintain inventories; apply configuration baselines; use Infrastructure as Code and version control; automated configuration management tools; regular audits and vulnerability scans; hardened standards (e.g., CIS Benchmarks, NIST); test changes in staging; monitor for drift.

Prevention: enforce least privilege, disable unused features, remove default credentials, encrypt data in transit and at rest with strong keys, implement strong access controls, segment networks, and adopt automated change-management.