At its core, Attack Surface Management (ASM) is the process of identifying and managing the various points where your organization and its systems, networks, and applications might be vulnerable to unauthorized access or other security threats. It represents all the possible entry points that an attacker could exploit to compromise the security of your organization.

Just like the threat landscape, your attack surface is always changing, and minimizing and controlling the attack surface is critical to reducing and mitigating overall risk. It’s a continuous process — attack surface management needs constant TLC to ensure its efficacy. Continuous asset discovery, vulnerability assessments, risk prioritization, monitoring, planning, and training are vital to your strategy’s success.

By actively managing the attack surface, you can enhance your organization’s cybersecurity posture and reduce the likelihood of successful cyber attacks.

Assessing the efficacy of your attack surface management strategy

Evaluating the efficacy of your existing ASM strategy is key to improving it, and crucial to ensure that the security measures you have in place remain effective and aligned with your organization’s risk tolerance.

Here are several key steps and efficacy metrics you can use to assess the effectiveness of your current strategy:

1. Vulnerability Metrics:

• Number of Vulnerabilities: Track the total number of vulnerabilities discovered over time. A decrease in this number may indicate effective vulnerability management.
• Time-to-Remediate: Measure the average time it takes to remediate identified vulnerabilities. A shorter time frame suggests a more responsive and efficient strategy.

2. Risk Reduction:

• Risk Trend Analysis: Monitor changes in the overall risk profile of the organization. Regular risk assessments can help identify trends and assess whether the ASM strategy is effectively reducing risk.

3. Asset Discovery and Inventory:

• Coverage Percentage: Assess the percentage of the organization’s assets that have been discovered and cataloged. A higher coverage indicates a more comprehensive understanding of the attack surface.

4. Threat Intelligence Integration:

• Actionable Intelligence Utilization: Evaluate how well your organization leverages threat intelligence to proactively address potential threats. The incorporation of threat intelligence into decision-making processes is a key indicator of an effective ASM strategy.

5. Incident Response Metrics:

• Incident Response Time: Measure the time it takes to detect, respond to, and recover from security incidents. A shorter incident response time indicates a more agile and effective response capability.

6. Continuous Monitoring:

• Real-Time Monitoring Effectiveness: Assess your organization’s ability to detect and respond to changes in the attack surface in real-time. This includes the monitoring of new assets, vulnerabilities, or unexpected configuration changes.

7. Red Team Exercises:

• Red Team Results: Conduct periodic red team exercises to simulate real-world attacks and assess your organization’s ability to detect and respond. The results can provide insights into the effectiveness of security controls.

8. Feedback from Incident Reviews:

• Lessons Learned: Regularly review and analyze post-incident reports and lessons learned. This feedback can help identify areas for improvement in the ASM strategy.

Tips to achieve a successful attack surface management strategy

Reviewing your overall cybersecurity strategy may be on your year-end to-do list; after all, frequent program reviews foster adaptation and enhance the resilience of your organization against new and evolving cyber threats.

We’ve pulled together some quick tips to reference as you plan your next strategy audit or refresh:

1. Regularly update asset inventories

Ensure that your organization maintains an up-to-date inventory of all assets, including hardware, software, and data. Regularly scan for and discover new assets to keep the inventory comprehensive.

2. Maintain continuous vulnerability scanning

Implement continuous vulnerability scanning to identify and assess potential weaknesses in your organization’s systems and applications. Regular scans help in staying ahead of emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

3. Check or update threat intelligence integrations

Integrate threat intelligence feeds into the ASM strategy to stay informed about the latest cyber threats. Leverage this intelligence to proactively adjust security measures and prioritize actions based on current threat landscapes.

4. Implement risk-based prioritization (if you haven’t already)

Prioritize vulnerabilities and risks based on their potential impact on the organization, and potential cost of breach and remediation. Focus resources on addressing high-impact vulnerabilities and those that are actively being exploited.

5. Collaborate with IT and DevOps teams

Foster collaboration between security teams, IT teams, and development teams. Ensure that security considerations are integrated into the development and deployment processes, minimizing the introduction of vulnerabilities.

6. Run regular red team exercises

Conduct regular red team exercises to simulate real-world attacks. These exercises can help identify weaknesses in the ASM strategy and provide insights into how well your organization can detect and respond to sophisticated threats.

7. Conduct periodic security assessments

Conduct comprehensive security assessments, including penetration testing and security audits, to evaluate the overall security posture of your organization. Use the findings to refine the ASM strategy and address identified weaknesses.

8. Collaborate with industry peers

Engage with industry peers and participate in information sharing forums. Collaboration can provide valuable insights into emerging threats and effective ASM strategies employed by other organizations.

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Cavelo can help

Cavelo and its Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) platform continuously scans digital assets to identify, classify, track, protect and report on sensitive data. It automates data discovery and classification, ensuring you’ll always have an up-to-date and accurate data inventory to support your evolving attack surface management strategy.

Get our Buyer’s Guide to Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) to access more practical tips and best practices.