What is Attack Surface Management?

Attack surface management (ASM) is the continuous process of identifying and addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Attack surface management (ASM) is the continuous process of identifying and addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities from a hacker's perspective. It involves assessing risks, using methods and resources like hackers. ASM also entails prioritizing internal attack surface risks to align their resources. Organizations must develop external attack surface management (EASM) like internal ASM plans.

Organizations needing help developing an ASM and EASM plan should research cybersecurity and managed security services providers (MSSPs) like LinearStack. LinearStack's expertise in XDR for endpoint security, artificial intelligence(AI), identity management, network perimeter security, and layer 7 application security provides a solid foundation of attack surface protection.

Why Is Attack Surface Management (ASM) Essential for an Organization?

Because of the ongoing digital transformations and the rise in remote work, the number of potential attack vectors for cyber-attacks against digital attack surfaces has increased. Specifically, the progression of organizations moving their digital footprint and security DMZ further away from their data centers adds to the increase in risk.

The definition of the organization's security perimeters remains fluid. The rapid growth of business transformation, including the expansion into cloud environments with the need for continuous monitoring by their security operations teams for potential vulnerabilities, has further sped up the risk. Threat actors using AI-based hacker tools discover these internet-facing assets filled with unpatched software. These blind spots and security weaknesses alter the organization's external security posture. These transformations often shift the perimeters when determining the most critical attack surfaces. Organizations transform the remote access strategy by migrating to a SASE/Zero-trust model. The security perimeter becomes the SASE/Zero-Trust architecture hosted by a cloud provider or zero-trust vendor. These cloud assets require a new level of cloud security to reduce the potential threats of AI-powered hackers. 

What is an Example of Attack Surface?

Attack surfaces within the organizational network include physical devices, web applications, database systems, mobile devices, cloud instances, SaaS applications, IaaS instances, and people.

We should consider people as an attack surface. Using social media, Hackers attempt to contact employees using social engineering techniques. These techniques include email phishing attacks, SMS messaging, and voice emails. The hacker aims to access their victims' email accounts and corporate credentials.

To prevent phishing attacks, organizations should develop an attack surface management strategy. This strategy involves finding, classifying, and assessing the security of your organization's assets. Hackers use bots and other methods to discover new digital assets and exploit them. Attack Surface Management helps users find and identify security risks in their IT environment and develop a protection strategy against bot attacks.

Organizations developing attack surface management must account for internal assets, including improperly removed equipment, which can contain user data and a password stolen from the system via electronic logging in and a physical break. These devices, filled with legacy data and credentials, become orphans within the corporate network. Using asset discovery tools during the assessment phase of an ASM plan helps find devices with critical vulnerabilities.

The Importance of ASM in Reducing Exposure to Cyber Attacks.

Modern attack surfaces include every place a hacker could attempt to access an information network. The ASM process provides your organization with complete visibility into your IT environment. ASM helps protect your team from attacks that threaten to damage them or disrupt them.

How does an organization handle a vulnerability? Investing in a practical attack surface management plan extending across the entire enterprise attack surface with real-time visibility helps reduce the exposure to the ever-present and changing threat landscape. 

What is Attack Surface Risk Management?

An attack surface risk management (ASRM) is defined as the ongoing assessment of the IT system in an organization. ASRM identifies security gaps from the point of view of an attacker, including security gaps across processes, people, and technologies. Identifying the most urgent risk is critical in selecting remedial action and a logical and effective assessment method.

The list you've identified for attacks can easily surpass what your security staff can validate, or your computer's team can remediate. Therefore, you must collect everything for your remediation efforts to determine how they should concentrate their work.

Developing Proactive Risk Remediation Strategies

Automation leveraging real-time attack surface analysis to help exploit the physical attack surface and internal attack services is critical to stay with the increased attack velocity. Premises systems, external and internal cloud applications, and operating systems patches have and should become part of any automated remediation strategy supporting the ASM and EASM plan.

What is the Role of an MSSP for Protection Attack Surfaces?

Organizations needing more resources, time, and capital to develop an ASM plan should partner with an MSSP like LinearStack. The New Zealand-based cybersecurity architecture, managed services, and compliance consulting firm brings several years of experience developing attack surface protection strategies ranging from endpoints to front-end web servers. LinearStack's expertise in cybersecurity and managed services make them a potent partner when developing an ASM plan.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, organizations have more options for better protection capabilities. However, Hackers also have a strong AI presence, and this new threat vector often requires organizations to develop a fluid ASM plan. AI-powered cybersecurity attacks can adjust their attack patterns, including increasing the velocity of the attack, the method of attack, and what targets they are focusing on. LinearStack's expertise in AI-based cybersecurity defense helps create this fluid strategy to protect your internal and external attack surfaces.

About LinearStack

LinearStack is a leading Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) and security systems integrator based in New Zealand. Since our establishment in 2013, we have built a reputation for providing world-class 24x7 security services to businesses of all sizes. We are proud to partner with some of the top technology companies in the industry, such as Palo Alto Networks, Cisco Systems, Imperva, and LogRhythm. Our excellent operational capabilities, as well as our fulfillment of business requirements and completion of rigorous technical, sales enablement, and specialization examinations, have earned us a distinguished reputation in the industry.

At LinearStack, we take pride in providing top-notch security solutions tailored to our client's needs. We aim to help businesses reduce cyber-attack risks, strengthen security posture, and maintain regulatory compliance. Our clients rely on us for our exceptional security solutions, outstanding customer service, and industry expertise.

Culture

We’re 100% privately held, grown with a family mindset. When working with clients, we’re well-integrated within their teams and act as an extension of their operations. Augmenting existing teams is a transition we manage smoothly, empowering our customers to prioritize cybersecurity strategy while we protect their business from cyber threats 24x7.

Maintaining thriving IT systems and assuring data protection are fundamental needs that all businesses deserve.