Introduction
Attack surface – it is the total sum of potential vulnerabilities and entry points that an attacker could exploit to gain access or disrupt a system or network. With the size of digital footprints and security perimeters expanding, maintaining a complete and up-to-date asset inventory is becoming a serious challenge for businesses. Assets that aren’t properly managed undermine network security and create serious risks.
What are unmanaged assets? An unmanaged asset could be a forgotten cloud instance running vulnerable software, a misconfigured database that is unintentionally exposed to the open web, or a server deployed without being added to official asset inventories.
These unknown, forgotten, and unmanaged assets become easy points of entry for attackers, which makes having complete visibility and inventory management of these assets crucial.
What is the attack surface?
The attack surface of an organization includes all the assets, systems, and networks that could potentially be targeted by attackers, such as servers, software, cloud infrastructure, and internet-connected devices.
The attack surface of an organization can be divided into two main categories:
External attack surface: refers to the vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors that are accessible from external assets (outside the organization’s network), such as publicly available servers or internet-connected devices. Another essential component of external assets that are unknown to the host organization is called “Shadow IT.” In short, this term refers to the internet-facing assets that are not being actively patched, managed, or secured.
Internal attack surface: represents everything inside an organization’s network that employees use daily. In other words, the internal attack surface is the vulnerabilities that are accessible from within the organization’s network – internal servers, work devices, and cloud infrastructure.
The goal of Attack Surface Management (ASM) that includes attack surface monitoring and attack surface analysis, is to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors within an organization’s attack surface, to eliminate the possibility of a cyberattack.
Why does a business need Attack Surface Management (ASM)?
Research reveals that 69% of organizations have experienced some type of cyberattack, wherein, the attack itself started through the exploit of an unknown, or poorly managed internet-facing asset.
Businesses today, of sizes large and small, have multiple assets, reducing their capabilities to manage the security of each. It is becoming increasingly difficult for organizations to maintain complete visibility of the security perimeter, keep a complete IT asset inventory, and ensure that all external assets are properly patched and managed. Here is when Attack Surface Management (ASM) comes into play.
ASM solutions are designed to protect business assets from cyber risks through monitoring, evaluating, and securing the components of the network and minimizing the vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker.
There are several reasons why a business needs Attack Surface Management:
To understand the ever-evolving cyber threats: cybercriminals are constantly developing new tactics and techniques (TTPs) to exploit network and system vulnerabilities. Attack Surface Management helps businesses stay ahead of these threats by identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
To strengthen security posture: Attack Surface Management works by diving deeper into the offensive side, i.e. the minds of attackers. Security analysts monitor and evaluate different vulnerabilities that can be used to breach the security of a target organization. The mitigation steps may include updating existing security controls, monitoring network activity, blocking suspicious maneuvers, etc. Attack Surface Management also offers real-time visibility into vulnerabilities as and when they emerge.
To reduce the consequences of cyber breaches: a successful cyber attack can result in a data breach, which can have severe implications for a business. For example, a data breach can lead to the loss of sensitive customers or business information, damage to the business’s reputation, and financial losses due to legal and regulatory penalties. ASM can help prevent data breaches and the adversities that come with them.
For compliance requirements: most businesses are required to meet certain cybersecurity standards and regulations (such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR), to stay abreast in terms of business continuity, avoiding financial and legal penalties as well as maintaining customers’ trust. ASM can help businesses meet compliance requirements by identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities that could potentially lead to disastrous cybersecurity incidents.
To improve remediation: ASM‘s continuous monitoring enables security teams to get a risk-based analysis into identifying and prioritizing vulnerabilities. Through integrating Threat Intelligence, ASM can also help streamline the remediation process.
How to implement an efficient attack surface management strategy
To implement an effective ASM program, organizations should follow a systematic and continuous process of:
- Identify all the assets that make up your attack surface: having an inventory of assets, systems, and networks in an organization’s environment is necessary to know your attack surface. This includes physical and virtual assets such as servers, proprietary databases, shadow IT—hardware or software, cloud infrastructure, and internet-connected devices.
- Make sure to go for the full attack surface analysis: once the assets have been identified, their vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors are determined. The process involves a combination of manual and automated high-grade testing methods – such as penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, etc.
- Prioritize: there are a number of assets attributed to a business, consequently opening a number of potential vulnerabilities. It is meticulous and smart to quantify and prioritize and score the vulnerabilities through a risk-based approach. It is to note that the vulnerabilities are graded on a range of factors and the lower the score, the higher the risk.
- Mitigate: implement controls and measures to reduce the risk of successful attacks on the identified vulnerabilities. This can include patching and updating software, configuring firewalls and access controls, and implementing security protocols and systems.
- Monitor: Regularly monitor the attack surface to ensure that the controls and measures implemented are effective and that new vulnerabilities do not arise.
Mitigate risk to your organization’s assets with Group-IB Attack Surface Management
IT environments are dynamic and ever-expanding – leaving organizations with the mammoth task to discover, classify, and manage assets. The inability to do so can lead to exploited vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks.
Attack Surface Management is an essential aspect of the comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, and enabling the right technology solution can help organizations proactively protect their assets and minimize cyber risks. Group-IB intelligence-driven Attack Surface Management (ASM) is a fully cloud-based SaaS solution designed to discover, assess, and help manage the external attack surface.
The solution continuously scans the entire IPv4 space and beyond to identify all Internet-facing assets, including shadow IT, forgotten infrastructure, and misconfigurations that may be causing an internal asset to be exposed to the open web.
As an External Attack Surface Management (EASM) solution, ASM offers:
- Graphic analysis of assets and how they’re linked for end-to-end visibility
- Automation of the process of identifying and inventorying external assets, identifying potential attack vectors, risk scoring each issue, and prioritizing remediation tasks with threat intelligence insights
- Prioritizing remediation tasks with threat intelligence insights
Learn more about Group-IB Attack Surface Management (ASM) solution.