What is External Attack Surface Management?

External Attack Surface Management is a crucial cybersecurity tactic in today's digital landscape. It focuses on identifying and managing risks associated with internet-facing assets and systems. As organisations continue to embrace digital transformation, their attack surface – the sum of all potential points where a hacker could gain unauthorised access – expands, increasing security vulnerabilities.

Attack surface management is essential for mitigating these risks. By gaining visibility into their attack surface, organisations can assess potential vulnerabilities and address them before cyber attackers can exploit them. This process involves the use of various technologies and processes to continuously monitor and assess the security posture of internet-facing assets.

Implementing external attack surface management can help organisations uncover unknown assets, potential attack vectors, and security weaknesses. By conducting regular vulnerability assessments and continuous monitoring, organisations can proactively identify and mitigate potential threats.

Why is External Attack Surface Management Important?

In today's digital landscape, protecting digital assets is of utmost importance due to the increasing number of cyber threats. Unknown assets and vulnerabilities in an organisation's attack surface can be exploited by threat actors as potential attack vectors. Therefore, implementing effective external attack surface management is crucial for security teams to gain visibility into their internet-facing assets and mitigate security risks.

By continuously monitoring and managing their attack surfaces, organisations can identify potential threats and vulnerabilities, enabling them to strengthen their security posture and safeguard their digital environments. This article explores the importance of external attack surface management in mitigating security issues, securing critical vulnerabilities, and enhancing overall security strategy in the face of evolving cyber threats.

Why External Attack Surface Management is Key

In today's digital landscape, external attack surface management (EASM) is key to ensuring cybersecurity and protecting organisations from potential threats. As technology continues to evolve and the threat landscape constantly changes, companies face the challenge of managing an expanding external-facing attack surface.

The attack surface refers to all the potential points of entry an attacker can exploit in an organisation's digital assets. With the increasing number of internet-facing assets, such as web applications, cloud storage, and email servers, the attack surface has expanded significantly. This expansion creates more potential attack vectors for threat actors to target.

External attack surface management focuses on identifying and mitigating security risks associated with an organisation's internet-facing assets. By continuously monitoring and assessing these assets, security teams can discover and address unknown assets, potential vulnerabilities, and security weaknesses.

With the rise in cyber threats and the growing reliance on digital environments, having an effective external attack surface management program is critical. It allows organisations to understand their digital footprint, identify potential threats, and take proactive measures to enhance their security posture.

Evolving threat landscape

In today's digital landscape, the evolving threat landscape presents significant organisational challenges. With lower entry barriers to cybercrime and the increasing proficiency of hackers in exploiting weak spots, external attack surface management (EASM) has become more critical than ever.

Cybercriminals now have access to "cybercrime as a service" platforms, which provide them with tools, resources, and expertise to launch attacks. This has made it easier for them to target organisations of all sizes. Additionally, hackers have become adept at identifying and exploiting weak spots in an organisation's digital assets, such as misconfigurations and vulnerable systems.

EASM plays a crucial role in addressing these evolving threats by giving organisations visibility into their attack surface. It helps identify unknown assets, potential attack vectors, and vulnerabilities that could be exploited by threat actors. By continuously monitoring the organisation's digital environment, EASM enables security teams to proactively remediate any identified security weaknesses.

By implementing an EASM program, organisations can enhance their security posture and reduce the potential impact of a cyber attack. It allows for early detection and response to threats, minimising the likelihood of successful attacks. Furthermore, EASM enables organizations to effectively manage their digital footprint, especially in the context of digital transformation and the increasing reliance on cloud environments and third-party vendors.

Real World Examples of How EASM Impacts Your Organisation 

In today's digital landscape, managing external attack surfaces is crucial for organisations to safeguard their digital assets from cyber threats. Real-world examples highlight the devastating impact an organisation's attack surface can have on their security.

The SolarWinds and Log4J supply chain attacks are prime examples of how attackers exploited vulnerabilities in third-party vendors to gain unauthorized access. In these incidents, threat actors injected malicious code into trusted software, compromising numerous organisations that relied on these services. These attacks demonstrated the potential for attackers to exploit weak links and infiltrate networks through trusted channels.

Another example is the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, where hackers targeted a critical infrastructure company through a remote service. Vulnerabilities in the company's network perimeter and email server allowed attackers to gain access, causing disruptions in the fuel supply chain. This incident underscores the importance of identifying and securing all potential attack vectors, including remote services, to prevent such costly incidents.

Comprehensive attack surface management is necessary to mitigate these risks. The ability to discover and monitor all internet-facing assets, including third-party vendors and cloud storage, is crucial for identifying potential vulnerabilities. Organisations need to continuously scan their attack surfaces and assess potential threats to ensure their security controls are up to date.

In today's threat landscape, failure to manage the attack surface effectively can lead to severe security issues and weaknesses. To protect against potential attack vectors, organisations must invest in robust attack surface management tools and solutions. By understanding their digital footprint and continuously monitoring their attack surfaces, organisations can significantly reduce the risk of cyber attacks and protect their critical assets.

Here at DarkInvader, we provide External Attack Surface Management (EASM) ,Threat Intelligence and Dark Web Monitoring to help managers predict, plan and prepare for future security breaches. Listen to our ThreatBite episode below for more expert advice.