Tenable®, an Exposure Management company, has revealed that cloud AI workloads are more vulnerable than traditional ones, with 70% containing at least one unremediated critical vulnerability. This poses increased security risks for Singapore and Southeast Asian organizations as AI adoption accelerates. The report also revealed that 77% of organizations using Google’s Vertex AI Workbench had at least one notebook instance configured with an overprivileged default service account, which could allow privilege escalation and lateral movement across cloud environments.
These risks are increasingly top-of-mind for regulators across Southeast Asia. The Cybersecurity Act and Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Technology Risk Management Guidelines mandate stringent cloud and AI security controls in Singapore. Indonesia’s PP 71 and Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) regulations require secure cloud usage and local data storage for financial institutions. At the same time, Malaysia’s Risk Management in Technology (RMiT) framework sets out strict cloud risk practices for banks. Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) and Bank of Thailand (BOT) guidelines emphasize access controls and transparency, and the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) regulations call for data classification, strong authentication, and robust third-party governance. Organizations must embed security early into AI development as these regulatory frameworks evolve to ensure compliance and mitigate emerging cloud risks.
Tenable’s research also shows broader progress in cloud risk management. Toxic cloud trilogies, publicly exposed workloads, critically vulnerable, and highly privileged, fell to 29 percent of organizations surveyed, a nine-point improvement from 2024. Tenable’s researchers attribute the nine-point decline to sharper risk-prioritization practices and broader use of cloud-native security tooling, yet warn that even a single trilogy provides attackers with a fast lane to sensitive data.
Identity remains the foundation of a secure cloud environment. The report finds that 83 percent of AWS users have configured at least one identity provider (IdP), a best practice for securing human and service identities. Yet, the presence of identity-based risks persists. Credential abuse remains the most common initial access vector, implicated in 22 percent of breaches, underscoring that strong multi-factor authentication (MFA) enforcement and least privilege principles are critical to meet regulatory expectations and protect sensitive data.
“Organisations have made real strides in tackling toxic cloud risks, but the rise of AI workloads introduces a fresh wave of complexity,” said Ari Eitan, Director of Cloud Security Research at Tenable. “AI’s data-intensive nature, combined with persistent misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, demands a new level of diligence. Exposure management gives security teams the context to protect what matters most, including the crown jewels hidden inside AI environments.”
The report reflects findings by the Tenable Cloud Research team based on telemetry from workloads across diverse public cloud and enterprise environments, analyzed from October 2024 through March 2025. To download the report today, please visit 2the 025 Cloud Security Risk Report
