What Is an Attack Surface?

Types of Attack Surfaces

Understanding and owning the attack surface has become foundational for an organization’s comprehensive cyber defense strategy. The more an organization understands its ever-evolving attack surface, the quicker it can remedy potential vulnerabilities before they are exploited or exfiltrated.
Attack surfaces can be broadly categorized into three types:

Digital Attack Surface

The attack surface of a company’s IT environment is the sum of all weaknesses in software and in any other digital assets involved in the web, including:

• Web Applications: Weaknesses in web applications, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS).
• Servers and Databases: Misconfigurations or unpatched vulnerabilities in servers and databases.
• Endpoints: Laptops, desktops, mobile devices, and other endpoints that connect to the network.
• Cloud Services: Vulnerabilities within cloud network infrastructure and services.

Physical Attack Surface

The ‘physical attack surface’ relates to the literal hardware that might be attacked to gain unauthorized access and includes:

• Network Devices: Routers, switches, and other networking hardware.
• On-Premises Servers: Physical access to data centers and server rooms.
• Workstations and Laptops: Physical access to employees’ devices.

Social Engineering Attack Surface

Social engineering attack surface involves exploiting human psychology to gain unauthorized access, including:

• Phishing attacks: Emails or messages designed to trick users into providing sensitive information.
• Pretexting: Creating a fabricated scenario to steal personal information.
• Baiting: Leaving malicious devices (such as USB drives) in places from which they might be taken and used.

Strategies for Reducing the Attack Surface

You achieve an attack surface reduction by eliminating the footprint of possible entry points and weaknesses. Some approaches include:

• Regular Updates and Patching: Installing patches from their security patch list keeps all systems and applications updated and closes holes that attackers try to use.
• Network Segmentation: Carving up the network into sections so that an attack can’t spread too far limits the impact of troublesome breaches.
• Access Control: The implementation of robust access control measures, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), ensures that only authorized users have access to sensitive systems and data, which significantly reduces the risk of account compromises and unauthorized access.
• Employee Training: Training staff for such scenarios reduces the impact of social engineering attacks by educating employees about common tactics for causing a security breach, as well as specific methods for phishing scams, etc.
• Vulnerability Management: Running regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to identify and mitigate potential risks. Vulnerability management can help to harden your organization against many different cyber attack methods.

Utilizing these strategies can help your organization revise their existing security posture, and implement improvements to security through multiple verticals.

Attack Surface Management with IGS

Taking effective action to manage an organization’s attack surface is something you should never stop doing, and you will undoubtedly need the best tools and services to help you.

Check Point’s Infinity Global Services (IGS) can provide exactly that, including around-the-clock attack surface management, so your employees can do what you hired them to do – work on all those new products and services to take your business to the next level, while we take care of your cybersecurity needs. Take the first step with the External Attack Surface Assessment.

Boost your cyber resilience with Check Point’s cutting-edge attack surface management. You can schedule your free demo anytime.