Why is Attack Surface Management Important?
ASM is geared toward identifying the various ways that an attacker can target an organization.
It maps out all of an organization’s Internet-connected systems and looks for potential security gaps in them. This is important because ASM enables an organization to close these vulnerabilities before an attacker can exploit them.
By doing so, they raise the complexity and reduce the likelihood of a cyberattack.
How Does Attack Surface Management Work?
ASM solutions will periodically scan an organization’s network to identify its IT assets.
During this process, it builds up a complete inventory of all systems and software that the organization uses and that can be exploited to attack it. With this inventory, the ASM solution can look for vulnerabilities in these IT assets, for instance:
- An ASM solution may check for software containing known CVEs.
- It may also search for common security vulnerabilities and configuration issues that leave the asset vulnerable.
The result of this assessment is a list of vulnerabilities that an attacker could target to attack an organization. Based on its knowledge of the organization’s IT infrastructure, an ASM solution can prioritize these digital assets so that a security team can prioritize those that pose the greatest cyber risk to the organization.
What ASM Encompasses
ASM solutions are designed to provide complete visibility into vulnerabilities within an organization’s digital attack surface. To accomplish this, solutions will look for:
- Known IT assets
- Shadow IT
- Domains and IP addresses
- Websites
- Email
- Cloud solutions
- Software as a Service (SaaS) tools
- Internet of Things (IoT) devices
- Data repositories (GitHub, databases, etc.)
Core Functions of Effective Attack Surface Management
ASM is designed to provide end-to-end detection and management of vulnerabilities in an entire attack surface.
To accomplish this, it has five main functions or stages:
- Discovery: Identifying external assets that could be targets of cyber attack.
- Context: Determine the purpose of each asset to identify its criticality and ease remediation.
- Vulnerability Scanning: Scanning IT assets for vulnerabilities that could be targeted by attackers.
- Prioritization: Use collected contextual information to prioritize identified vulnerabilities.
- Remediation: Address identified issues in order of importance.
How Attack Surface Management Defeats Attackers
The goal of modern attack surface management is to reduce the potential of cyberattacks. For that, it looks at the organization’s IT infrastructure from the perspective of the attacker.
Many of the tools and techniques used by ASM are the same as those used by a real attacker targeting the organization. This approach means that the vulnerabilities identified by ASM are also the ones that an attacker is most likely to identify and exploit.
Plus, ASM uses its knowledge of the target environment to prioritize the vulnerabilities that it identifies.
This combination means that ASM helps security teams fix the security gaps that are most likely to be exploited by an attacker and cause significant harm to the business. By doing so, it makes it much harder for an attacker to achieve their intended goals.
ASM vs. Vulnerability Management
ASM and vulnerability management are both designed to identify and address potential vulnerabilities and attack vectors in an organization’s systems. They accomplish this by inspecting software and systems for:
- Vulnerabilities
- Configuration errors
- Other potential attack vectors
The main difference between ASM and vulnerability management is the way that they determine the list of systems to scan for security risks. ASM builds its list — enabling it to identify and assess unknown and unmanaged assets — while vulnerability scanners typically work based on a provided list of domains.
Attack Surface Management Solutions with IGS
Attack surface management is a critical component of an organization’s cybersecurity program.
Without visibility into its digital attack surface, a company can’t effectively identify, prioritize, and remediate security gaps that could leave it vulnerable to exploitation.
Penetration testing is an effective means of identifying the vulnerabilities that a cybercriminal is likely to identify and exploit when trying to attack an organization. Check Point Infinity Global Services offers both penetration testing services and External Attack Surface Assessments to provide organizations with in-depth visibility into their current security posture and exposure to cyber threats.
With the insights and recommendations gleaned from these assessments, a company can ensure that its vulnerability mitigation program provides maximal value to the organization by minimizing the risk of a successful cyberattack.
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