A cloud workload is any application, service, virtual machine, container, or background process running in a cloud environment such as IaaS, PaaS, or Kubernetes. Unlike a single on-premises server, a workload may scale up or down, move between regions, and depend on managed identity, storage, and networking services.
Cloud workloads matter because attackers often target their identities, APIs, secrets, and exposed management interfaces rather than the cloud platform itself. Common risks include misconfigured storage, overly broad permissions, vulnerable containers, and weak secret handling, which can lead to data theft or persistence. Defenders protect workloads with least privilege, image scanning, patching, logging, runtime detection, and policy controls that follow changes in dynamic infrastructure.