External Exposure Management
External Exposure Management in cybersecurity is the ongoing process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating security risks associated with an organization's internet-facing assets and data. It involves continuously monitoring and managing the organization's external attack surface to minimize the likelihood and impact of cyberattacks.
Think of it as a proactive approach to security, where you constantly scan your organization's digital perimeter for weaknesses and take steps to reinforce them before attackers can exploit them.
Here's a breakdown of the key aspects of External Exposure Management:
Identification: Discovering and inventorying all internet-facing assets, including websites, subdomains, cloud services, APIs, and any publicly accessible data.
Assessment: Analyzing the identified assets for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and security risks. This includes evaluating their susceptibility to various attacks, such as web application attacks, phishing, and data breaches.
Prioritization: Ranking the identified exposures based on their potential impact and likelihood of exploitation. This helps organizations focus their resources on addressing the most critical risks first.
Mitigation: Implementing security controls and taking actions to reduce or eliminate the identified exposures. This may involve patching vulnerabilities, updating configurations, implementing access controls, and educating employees about security threats.
Continuous Monitoring: Regularly monitoring the external attack surface for changes and new threats. This ensures that the organization's security posture remains strong and adaptive to the evolving threat landscape.
Why is External Exposure Management important?
Reduces the risk of cyberattacks: By proactively identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities, organizations can significantly reduce their likelihood of being successfully attacked.
Protects sensitive data: Helps safeguard sensitive data from unauthorized access and data breaches.
Maintains business continuity: Minimizes disruptions to business operations caused by cyberattacks.
Protects reputation: Helps organizations maintain a positive reputation and avoid the negative consequences of a security breach.
Ensures compliance: Assists organizations in complying with relevant security regulations and standards.
In today's interconnected world, where cyber threats are constantly evolving, External Exposure Management is essential for organizations of all sizes and types. It enables them to take a proactive and comprehensive approach to security, ensuring that their internet-facing assets and data remain protected.
ThreatNG can effectively manage and mitigate External Exposure Management procedures by:
External Discovery: ThreatNG automatically discovers and maps an organization's internet-facing assets, including websites, subdomains, cloud services, and more. This provides a complete view of the organization's external technical attack surface, crucial for identifying potential entry points for external attacks.
External Assessment: ThreatNG assesses the discovered assets for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and security risks, helping identify weaknesses that attackers could exploit. ThreatNG's assessment capabilities include:
Evaluating the susceptibility of web applications to hijacking, subdomain takeover, BEC and phishing attacks, brand damage, data leaks, and ransomware.
Assessing exposure to cyber risks, ESG risks, and supply chain and third-party risks.
Providing detailed breakdowns of findings for each assessment. For example, the Web Application Hijack Susceptibility assessment analyzes the parts of a web application accessible from the outside world to identify potential entry points for attackers.
Analyzing the website's subdomains, DNS records, SSL certificate statuses, and other relevant factors in the Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility assessment.
Deriving the BEC & Phishing Susceptibility assessment from Sentiment and Financials Findings, Domain Intelligence, and Dark Web Presence.
Reporting: ThreatNG generates detailed reports on the external attack surface, vulnerabilities, and security ratings. These reports help organizations understand their security posture and prioritize remediation efforts.
Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG continuously monitors the external attack surface for changes and new threats, helping organizations stay ahead of emerging risks.
Investigation Modules: ThreatNG provides in-depth investigation modules for domains, social media, sensitive code exposure, cloud and SaaS exposure, online sharing exposure, sentiment and financials, archived web pages, dark web presence, and technology stack. These modules help analyze potential attack vectors and identify specific threats.
Intelligence Repositories: ThreatNG leverages intelligence repositories on the dark web, compromised credentials, ransomware events and groups, known vulnerabilities, ESG violations, bug bounty programs, SEC Form 8-Ks, and Bank Identification Numbers. This threat intelligence helps organizations understand the broader threat landscape and proactively defend against external attacks.
ThreatNG can also work with complementary security solutions like vulnerability scanners, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems, further enhancing an organization's security posture.
Examples of ThreatNG Helping:
ThreatNG helped a financial institution discover a subdomain takeover vulnerability on one of its forgotten marketing websites, preventing a potential phishing attack.
ThreatNG helped a healthcare organization identify sensitive patient data exposed on a misconfigured cloud storage bucket, preventing a potential data breach.
Examples of ThreatNG Working with Complementary Solutions:
ThreatNG integrates with a vulnerability scanner to provide detailed vulnerability assessment reports on internet-facing assets, helping organizations prioritize remediation efforts.
ThreatNG integrates with a firewall to provide real-time threat intelligence, helping the firewall block malicious traffic and prevent attacks.
