Initial Access Vectors You’re Probably Ignoring in Your Cybersecurity Plan

If you spend any time inside a security operations center, you’ve probably memorized the usual suspects for how intruders worm their way in: phishing emails, unpatched perimeter devices, and weak RDP credentials. Those attack paths deserve the negative press, no question, but focusing on them exclusively is a bit like installing a fortress-grade door while leaving the ground-floor windows propped open.

Below are six lesser-talked-about initial access vectors (IAVs) that routinely slip through risk registers, security budgets, and after-action reports—even though adversaries love exploiting them. Treat the list as both a wake-up call and a practical guide on how to slam those windows shut.

Forgotten API Keys Living Their Best Life on GitHub

Ask a cloud red-team veteran where they start recon and you’ll hear the same answer: public code repositories. Developers, pressed for time or misinformed about secrets management, commit AWS keys, Slack tokens, Stripe credentials, you name it. Once indexed by GitHub’s internal scanning or third-party tools like truffleHog, those keys can end up in attackers’ hands within minutes.

Why It’s Ignored

• Security teams often assume DevOps pipelines or secret-scanning bots will catch everything.

• After a project is archived or a developer leaves, no one “owns” the repo—and nobody rotates the keys.

How To Close the Gap

• Enforce pre-commit hooks that block pushes containing high-entropy strings.

• Run regular retrospective scans of the entire org—not just active repos.

• Tie key rotation to CI/CD job completion so every merge automatically invalidates old tokens.

Dangling DNS Records & Abandoned Sub-Domains

You spin up a marketing microsite (launch2022.yourbrand.com) for a campaign, point a DNS CNAME to a cloud host, run ads for six weeks… and forget about it. Months later the cloud resource is gone but the DNS entry remains. An attacker claims the hostname on the same cloud platform and suddenly owns a sub-domain that looks perfectly legitimate to users, browsers, and SPF checks.

Why It’s Ignored

• DNS is “set-and-forget” for most orgs; no one audits zones against live infrastructure.

• Asset inventories rarely include short-lived marketing or event properties.

How To Close the Gap

• Schedule quarterly DNS sweeps to validate that every record maps to an active service.

• Implement least-privilege DNS management so only vetted teams can create external CNAMEs.

• Use wildcard TLS certificates sparingly—otherwise hijacked sub-domains inherit your valid cert.

Misconfigured OAuth Consent Screens

You’ve seen the pop-ups: “This app would like to read your email and drive data.” OAuth is convenient, but misconfiguring scopes or neglecting to verify redirect URIs allows adversaries to create look-alike apps that request over-broad permissions. The victim thinks they’re authorizing a harmless plug-in; in reality they’ve granted persistent API access to a threat actor—no malware required.

Why It’s Ignored

• OAuth flows often live outside InfoSec’s line of sight, managed by product or growth teams.

• Cloud consoles hide the danger beneath jargon like “offline_access” or “refresh tokens.”

How To Close the Gap

• Whitelist only approved OAuth publishers inside your identity provider.

• Monitor sign-in logs for first-time consent to high-risk scopes such as mail.read or gdrive.readonly.

• Educate staff that OAuth pop-ups are effectively the new phishing email.

Shadow-IT SaaS Workspaces

From design mock-ups in Figma to team to-do lists in Trello, employees will adopt whatever tool accelerates their day. Many of these platforms allow anyone with a corporate email address to spin up a workspace—complete with SSO, file uploads, and API integrations. If an attacker compromises a personal device or an exposed token, they may commandeer that “unofficial” SaaS instance as a launchpad into the wider enterprise.

Why It’s Ignored

• Traditional asset scans don’t detect what you don’t officially purchase.

• Business units view clampdowns on SaaS sign-ups as red tape, so security backs off.

How To Close the Gap

• Use your identity provider’s “discover” feature to list every application consuming SSO.

• Configure Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) policies to flag OAuth connections to unsanctioned tools.

• Offer a safe, fast approval process for new SaaS so employees aren’t tempted to go rogue.

Printer & IoT Web Interfaces Stuck on Factory Settings

Printers, smart TVs, badge readers, conference-room cameras—modern offices are a buffet of embedded devices, most of which run outdated Linux kernels and ship with default admin passwords. Attackers landing on a guest Wi-Fi or a poorly segmented VLAN can pivot through these devices, scrape print jobs for confidential information, or tunnel outbound C2 traffic nobody notices.

Why It’s Ignored

• Facility management and IT rarely coordinate on firmware updates.

• Vulnerability scanners often skip non-Windows assets or classify them as low severity.

How To Close the Gap

• Segment IoT to its own network and restrict it with NAC policies.

• Change default credentials immediately and enforce complex passphrases.

• Subscribe to vendor security advisories—yes, even for your conference-room whiteboard.

Social Engineering Through Your Own Customer Support Channels

You’ve trained employees to spot spear-phish emails, but have you trained your support reps to spot spear-phish phone calls? Attackers regularly impersonate legitimate customers, partners, or even employees to convince first-line agents to reset passwords, reroute MFA codes, or provide juicy intel on internal tooling.

Why It’s Ignored

• Support metrics emphasize speed and customer satisfaction, not necessarily security diligence.

• Playbooks may cover data privacy (e.g., PCI) but skip social-engineering contingencies.

How To Close the Gap

• Introduce a “secure escalation” path: reps should verify identity via out-of-band methods before fulfilling sensitive requests.

• Record and randomly audit calls and tickets for social-engineering red flags.

• Celebrate reps who spot and block suspect requests—positive reinforcement matters.

Putting It All Together: An “Inventory Mindset”

Notice the common thread? Every overlooked initial access vector above exists because something fell off the inventory list—be it credentials, DNS entries, OAuth apps, SaaS tools, physical devices, or human processes. You can’t defend what you don’t track.

Action items to adopt immediately:

• Build (and automate) a living asset inventory that spans code repositories, DNS zones, SaaS catalogs, IoT devices, and business processes.

• Assign ownership. Each asset should have a responsible team with KPIs tied to security hygiene.

• Review access pathways from an attacker’s point of view during threat-modeling sessions. Ask, “How would I get in if phishing and RDP were suddenly off-limits?”

The Bottom Line

Attackers gravitate toward the path of least resistance. If you’re flooding your SIEM with detections for yesterday’s threats but forgetting about forgotten dev keys or abandoned sub-domains, you’re practically holding the door open.

By broadening your view of initial access vectors and embedding an inventory-first mindset, you turn low-hanging fruit into barbed wire—and force adversaries to burn more time, money, and zero-days. In the cat-and-mouse reality of cyber-defense, that’s a game worth playing.