Hackers are constantly scanning your network, often spotting vulnerabilities before you do. They’re looking for misconfigurations, exposed assets, and weak points that could lead to a breach—are you seeing what they see? Every activity or interaction that your organization does online – website, social media accounts, cloud services, third-party integrations, and more – contributes to its digital footprint. This digital footprint is information attackers use to find your weaknesses and attempt to exploit them.
What if you could anticipate how hackers plan to exploit your vulnerabilities before they strike? Imagine identifying the weaknesses most enticing to an attacker—before they become exploited. Attack Surface Management (ASM) solutions help organizations continuously identify, monitor and manage aspects of public-facing IT assets, including those that may be forgotten. ASM is the tool in the battle of visibility – either you see your weaknesses first, or attackers will show you them by exploiting them.
Sprocket Security, a premier offensive security provider, is bringing a unique perspective to Attack Surface Management; the view of the hacker. Everything is about data. With the emergence of shared infrastructure arrangements, the attacker has more data and tools than ever before to take over assets. With comprehensive visibility, continuous monitoring, and risk prioritization, you can think like a hacker to reduce risk and expand visibility into your organization’s digital footprint.
Understanding ASM Key Components #
Effective ASM is ongoing and requires a strategy that involves many elements, such as identifying potential entry points that might be attractive to an attacker. This knowledge can be used to improve your overall security posture. Every organization needs to defend against known threats and proactively mitigate risks before they’re exploited. In this proactive approach, ASM can be a crucial risk management component that allows organizations to confidently continue expanding their public-facing environments.
Asset discovery – The first step in building an ASM profile. During asset discovery, you will identify assets in your organization’s public-facing infrastructure. Attackers look for unmonitored or forgotten assets to exploit. In 2024, over 60% of breaches started with an exposed, unmonitored asset – often as small as an old subdomain. In short, you can’t protect things you don’t know about.
Continuous monitoring – Performing an ongoing scan of your attack surface for new network services or exposed assets. Attackers look for the assets you forgot. Organizations using continuous monitoring and ASM technologies experienced a 50% decrease in the likelihood of successful attacks!
Change Detection - Change detection serves as a red flag that your attack surface has been modified. Modern IT environments change rapidly. These changes can be attractive to a threat actor (or even caused by one!). Attackers can try to use an exploit that will go unnoticed as just another change. Change detection is useful to identify decommissioned assets, new IP addresses, open network ports, and service configuration changes.
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| Source: Sprocket Security Internal Data for 2024 |
Why You Should Map Your Attack Surface #
With an attacker’s mindset, ask yourself the question “Do I know where the entry points to my network are?” Discovery is the foundation for building a more comprehensive understanding of risk in public-facing systems. Without this knowledge, a hacker’s toolkit will become infinitely more successful! Consider a few techniques a hacker might use and how you could combat them before the breach even begins:
Hacker’s Toolkit #
Port Scanning – used to identify open ports and services. With this information, a hacker can identify exploitable entry points to gain access to your network.
DNS reconnaissance – process of gathering information about a domain through its DNS (Domain Name System) infrastructure. A hacker would discover hidden domains, subdomains, and other resources exposed through DNS records.
Certificate analysis – examining digital certificates used in network communications. Analyzing these certificates helps hackers identify weak points in a network’s encryption infrastructure to be exploited.
The Defender’s Toolkit #
Continuous scanning – an ongoing process of monitoring for threats in real-time. By constantly checking for vulnerabilities or weaknesses in your environment, you can catch exposures before an attacker.
Real-time alerts – notifications triggered instantly when a specific security event or incident occurs. Having real-time data allows your team to act immediately!
ASM dashboards – provides a centralized view of an organization’s attack surface. With a dashboard, your security team will have full visibility into your attack surface to manage exposure to potential cyber threats.
There are many more methods and techniques, including active and passive approaches, that a hacker will have at the ready, so a comprehensive defender’s toolkit is important because it can turn discovery data into security insights.
At Sprocket, our ASM provides continuous asset inventory, as seen from the attacker’s perspective, and a solution to discover public-facing assets that you own, or an attacker has taken over via cybersquatting or more aggressive techniques.
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| Source: Sprocket ASM Tool Dashboard |
Why Tracking Attack Surface Changes is Critical #
You have your attack surface mapped, you’re discovering vulnerabilities and patching them, now you must keep tracking changes? Why?
Comprehensive discovery and real-time monitoring of your public-facing attack surface is a critical component of Gartner’s Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) process. In the CTEM approach, real-time insights into potential exposures are fundamental. ASM offers proactive visibility, the potential for rapid response, and encourages ongoing maturity as your organization grows information security capabilities.
You can’t defend your assets if you don’t have an accurate accounting of them. A multi-method approach is necessary to identify assets that are associated with your organization but might not be easily identified using a single method such as DNS analysis. Attack surfaces are not static. ASM is a continuous process that is especially critical for organizations that deploy frequently or manage large, complex infrastructures.
Gain The Attacker Advantage #
With full visibility into your attack surface, you gain the upper hand. Now, you can pinpoint exactly where attackers might exploit vulnerabilities and identify which assets are at risk. This elevated insight strengthens your security posture to a whole new level. Take the first step in protecting your business from evolving cyber threats by creating an account for Sprocket ASM today. Gain real-time visibility, continuous monitoring, and advanced threat protection.
About the Author: With over 25 years working in information security, Michael brings a seasoned eye towards understanding and resolving information security challenges and emerging threats. Working as a practitioner, Michael has provided offensive security services and guidance to organizations of all sizes. As a manager, Michael has led teams at Optiv, Rapid7 and Pentera as well as founding two companies. As an educator, Michael has taught offensive and defensive cybersecurity at Madison College and U.S. DoD.
Mike Belton — Head of Service Delivery at Sprocket Security https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdeAyGovnv6nIEMN_rWyY5T-yJHbFEGg291jxbcG2te072G1HzKDjWh5z8mcS5FYVdAm8TvFYuCMbmRVc2584uVOAR4A5jwTmwSkFdgE8RC0y4WaGkj4LDwtpBvFWlf5E616qFtn3T0e1fQRQsBRZ31fh9HXe9I52gyaAuiT7YaHjivErjKT7UzTjyIQ/s1600/mike.png
