the term “Attack Surface Management“(ASM) has gone from obscure to ubiquitous in the cybersecurity space over the past few years. Both Gartner and Forrester Importance of ASM Recently, several solution providers have emerged in this space, and investment and acquisition activity has increased.
Many concepts come and go in cybersecurity, but attack surface management promises staying power. As attack surface management evolves into a critical component of threat and exposure management strategies, why attack surface management has grown to become an important category, and why it is necessary for organizations around the world. It’s worth considering whether to continue.
What is attack surface management?
The attack surface is expanding rapidly. The attack surface includes any internet-facing IT asset (applications, IoT devices, Kubernetes clusters, cloud platforms) that attackers can exploit to gain entry and perpetuate attacks. I have. An enterprise’s attack surface is bombarded with high-volume attacks every day, and external network vulnerabilities can open the door to potential compromise.
Attack surface management identifies all external assets, both known and unknown, with the goal of discovering vulnerabilities and dangers before threat actors do. It also prioritizes vulnerabilities based on risk, so you can focus remediation efforts on the most critical issues. By adopting a continuous approach to attack surface management, organizations can quickly address vulnerabilities and protect critical assets as new, more sophisticated threats emerge and the attack surface expands. You can strengthen it.
What is driving the adoption of attack surface management?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended cataloging external assets in 2014, so why has attack surface management taken so long to become more widespread? Several developments and trends make it more urgent than ever before.
- hybrid work – Increasing remote work has made businesses more reliant on technology and less confined to a single location, both of which lead to a larger attack surface and increased exposure.
- cloud computing – The rapid adoption of the cloud has also expanded the attack surface faster than many security and IT teams can keep up, often resulting in technical debt and insecure configurations.
- Shadow IT – Today, employees frequently use their own devices and services to process corporate data without alerting IT departments or following appropriate protocols to protect this “shadow IT.”
- Connected Device – The proliferation of internet-connected devices, from smartphones to sensors in the business environment, is creating a new high-risk attack surface due to the relative insecurity of many IoT devices.
- Digital transformation – To remain competitive, enterprises are digitizing as broadly, deeply and as quickly as possible, modifying existing layers while creating new layers of attack surface.
- Expectations for development – The expectation that new features and products are constantly being announced has affected the speed with which technology is brought to market. The pressure to meet these demands can lead to new lines of code being hastily written without thorough security checks. Finding ways to innovate with confidence requires implementing robust security practices and integrating security into all stages of the development process.
As organizations faced resource shortages and expanded their IT infrastructures, the attack surface became significantly larger and more unwieldy. At the same time, external-facing assets are more exposed to more threats than ever before (2022 saw a record 146 billion cyberthreats for him).
Attack surface management is an effective solution to a key challenge overwhelming security teams of all sizes. But it soon evolved into something much bigger than that: the front line of cybersecurity.
What is the future of attack surface management?
As organizations of all sizes and in all industries become more dependent on the digital world, the attack surface becomes more difficult to secure and more important to protect.
NetSPI’s attack surface management solution combines cutting-edge technology with extensive offensive security expertise to provide the richest attack surface insight. NetSPI’s team and tools enable security staff to protect their ever-growing assets and address vulnerabilities with high-priority remediation actions. And by making the external attack surface as difficult to penetrate as possible, enterprises can prevent further attacks before they even start, further increasing the effectiveness of security teams.
Attack surface management is currently at the forefront of the cybersecurity debate, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon. For more information on advancing an aggressive security program, please visit the following links: Connect directly with the NetSPI team.
Note: This expert contribution is written by Brianna McGovern. Brianna is NetSPI’s Product Manager for Attack Surface Management and holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Penn State University.
NetSPI is the world leader in offensive security, offering the most comprehensive suite of penetration testing, attack surface management, breach and attack simulation solutions. Through a combination of technology innovation and human ingenuity, NetSPI helps organizations discover, prioritize, and remediate security vulnerabilities. Our global cybersecurity experts work with 9 of the top 10 U.S. banks, 4 of the top 5 global cloud providers, 4 of the 5 largest healthcare companies, and 3 FAANG companies , working to secure the world’s most prominent organizations, including 7 of the top 10. US retailers and e-commerce companies, as well as many Fortune 500 companies. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, NetSPI has offices in the US, Canada, UK and India.
