Today, organizations rely heavily on cloud platforms like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Box, and others to power daily operations. These tools drive productivity, but they also expand the attack surface in ways many businesses aren’t prepared for.
Cloud platforms concentrate sensitive data, identities, and business workflows in one place. When attackers gain access to a single cloud account, the impact can extend far beyond one user or device, and often without triggering traditional security controls.
This shift has made cloud environments an increasingly attractive target.
Why attackers are targeting cloud accounts
1. Direct access to valuable data
Cloud accounts often store or provide access to an organization’s most sensitive information, including financial records, customer data, intellectual property, and confidential communications.
For attackers, this data can be the end goal itself or the foundation for a larger attack involving fraud, extortion, or lateral movement into other systems.
2. Identity Is the new perimeter
Cloud platforms are accessible from anywhere in the world. As organizations move away from traditional network boundaries, identity has effectively become the primary control point.
Attackers know this and increasingly focus on stealing or abusing credentials rather than exploiting infrastructure. Once inside a legitimate account, their activity often blends in with normal user behavior, making it difficult to distinguish malicious actions from everyday work without advanced monitoring and context.
3. Misconfigurations are common
Cloud environments evolve quickly, and security settings can be complex or overlooked. Weak sharing permissions, inactive accounts, overly permissive admin roles, or misconfigured controls create easy entry points.
Threat actors actively scan for and exploit these weaknesses, knowing many organizations struggle to continuously assess cloud risk at scale.
4. Cloud attacks are highly scalable
Cloud-based attacks can be automated and repeated across an entire organization. Once attackers identify a successful technique (such as abusing OAuth permissions or deploying malicious inbox rules) they can replicate it quickly across multiple users.
Without centralized monitoring, this activity may continue unchecked until significant damage has already occurred.
5. A launchpad for further attacks
Compromised cloud accounts are often used as trusted launch points. Threat actors can send phishing emails from legitimate internal accounts, intercept payment workflows, manipulate invoices, or deploy ransomware.
Because these actions originate from a trusted source, they are far more likely to bypass traditional security controls.
Why this creates blind spots for MDR
Cloud environments introduce challenges that traditional detection methods weren’t designed to address. Attacker behavior often mimics legitimate use, indicators of compromise are subtle, and activity spans identities rather than devices.
Without cloud visibility, these threats can persist undetected—creating critical blind spots in MDR programs.
Why cloud monitoring matters in MDR
Endpoints and networks remain essential, but they don’t tell the whole story. Cloud monitoring fills the gaps by enabling MDR teams to identify early warning signs of compromise before attackers escalate access, steal data, or disrupt operations.
With the right visibility, suspicious behavior that would otherwise blend into normal activity becomes actionable.
Early signs of cloud compromise you can detect with visibility
With effective cloud monitoring in place, MDR teams can identify indicators that suggest an account or environment may be at risk, including:
- Suspicious login activity: Unexpected login attempts from unusual geographic locations, new or unrecognized devices, repeated failed logins, or access to long-dormant accounts can all signal that attackers are testing or abusing stolen credentials.
- Impossible travel: Logins that occur from geographically distant locations within an unrealistic time frame, such as a user appearing to authenticate from two countries minutes apart, strongly suggest compromised credentials and automated attacker activity.
- Abnormal data transfers: Unusual spikes in data downloads, mass file access, unexpected sharing activity, or large-scale deletions may indicate data exfiltration or preparation for extortion, ransomware, or intellectual property theft.
- Suspicious inbox rule creation: Attackers frequently create hidden inbox rules to conceal phishing emails, redirect communications, or intercept payment-related messages.
By integrating cloud coverage into MDR, organizations gain visibility into these threats and can respond before attackers gain control.
How Field Effect MDR delivers cloud protection
Field Effect MDR protects the cloud platforms that businesses rely on most through flexible, real-time detection and continuous monitoring. From productivity tools to identity and infrastructure services, we focus on securing the systems attackers target first—and providing the visibility needed to stop threats early.
By integrating cloud telemetry with endpoint and network data, Field Effect MDR provides a unified view of activity across the environment, allowing security teams to detect, investigate, and respond to cloud-based threats with speed and confidence.
Complete visibility
Gain full visibility into user activity and cloud events across platforms like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, AWS, Box, Okta, and more. Field Effect MDR correlates cloud, endpoint, and network signals to provide rich insight at the user level—eliminating blind spots and simplifying investigations.
Risk reduction
Identify and reduce risk before it turns into a breach. Field Effect MDR delivers prioritized alerts for suspicious logins, concurrent user activity, risky access attempts, and abnormal behavior—paired with clear, actionable remediation guidance to help teams respond decisively.
24/7 threat hunting
Cloud threats don’t follow business hours. Field Effect’s security operations center continuously hunts for signs of compromise across the cloud environment, uncovering stealthy attacker behavior such as hidden inbox rules, malicious file uploads, and abuse of cloud identities.
Rapid response
When a threat is confirmed, speed matters. Field Effect MDR enables rapid containment by isolating compromised cloud accounts, stopping attacker access, and preventing lateral movement before damage spreads.
Field Effect MDR can also include protections like domain monitoring (to help detect typosquatting attacks) and suspicious email analysis (to empower end users to submit suspicious emails for expert analysis)—further reducing risk across the organization.
The result? Complete visibility across your cloud environment with expert-level insight at the user level.
Why MSPs should care about cloud monitoring
For MSPs, cloud monitoring is essential for delivering complete MDR services while reducing operational risk. As attackers increasingly target cloud identities and SaaS platforms, gaps in visibility can expose both clients and service providers to unnecessary liability.
- Reduced risk and liability: Without cloud monitoring, compromised client accounts, data exposure, or email-based fraud can go undetected—increasing the likelihood of breaches, financial loss, and reputational damage. MDR with cloud coverage helps MSPs reduce risk across their customer base while demonstrating due diligence and a proactive security posture.
- Client trust: SMBs rely on MSPs to protect their most critical business tools. Offering MDR with cloud monitoring proves you can safeguard platforms like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and other SaaS applications that power daily operations—strengthening client confidence and long-term relationships.
- Scalability: Field Effect MDR streamlines cloud monitoring across multiple tenants, enabling MSPs to deliver consistent, repeatable security outcomes without increasing operational complexity or staffing requirements.
- Competitive differentiation: Cloud monitoring strengthens your MDR offering and clearly differentiates your services from providers focused solely on endpoints or networks. It positions your MSP as a security-first partner prepared to defend modern, cloud-centric environments.
- Operational efficiency: Enriched alerts, contextual investigations, and 24/7 SOC support reduce noise and alert fatigue. This allows your team to focus on client strategy, growth, and service delivery—not chasing false positives.
With Field Effect MDR, MSPs gain a stronger service portfolio, reduced risk exposure, and a more resilient security posture for every client they support.
Cloud monitoring as part of total MDR
Cloud coverage alone isn’t enough. When combined with endpoint and network detection, it enables a defense-in-depth MDR strategy. For Field Effect MDR, this means coverage for:
- Endpoints: Reduce risk from outdated software and insecure configurations while actively detecting malware and compromised devices.
- Network: Identify risky exposures and monitor for lateral movement, suspicious traffic, and command-and-control activity.
- Cloud: Address common misconfigurations and actively detect credential abuse, data exfiltration, phishing, and account compromise.
No modules, no add-ons, no blind spots. Just defense in depth with guidance from top cybersecurity experts.
Final thoughts
The modern workplace runs in the cloud, and attackers are exploiting gaps where monitoring falls short. Cloud monitoring is now a foundational part of MDR, giving organizations and MSPs the insight needed to detect threats early and respond effectively.
Field Effect MDR delivers this protection as part of a unified, powerful solution that safeguards endpoints, networks, and the cloud.
Frequently asked questions
Why is cloud monitoring important in MDR?
Because cloud environments like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are prime targets for attackers, and endpoints alone can’t detect every threat.
Which platforms does Field Effect MDR protect?
Field Effect MDR protects cloud services such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Box, AWS, Okta, Duo, Zendesk, ServiceNow, and more.
Why should MSPs care about cloud monitoring?
It strengthens client trust, scales efficiently across multiple tenants, and reduces operational overhead while delivering stronger outcomes.
How does Field Effect MDR monitor the cloud?
Through real-time detection, forensic user-level insight, suspicious email analysis, and 24/7 SOC-backed response.
