Modern companies face a large number of cyber threats associated with their digital assets. With the increase in the number of devices, cloud services, and publicly available data, businesses are faced with the task of effectively managing the attack surface. The attack surface is a set of all entry points that attackers can use to penetrate the corporate network.

To minimize risks, it is necessary to implement advanced solutions, such as https://www.immuniweb.com/use-cases/attack-surface-management/. In this article, we will analyze what this approach includes and how it helps businesses protect themselves from modern threats.

What is an Attack Surface?

An attack surface is defined as the collection of different parts through which an unauthorized person could attempt to penetrate or extract data from an environment.

In software, this includes all capabilities, functions, hardware, software, and network interfaces.

An attacker can potentially exploit these environments to cause harm or extract data from them.

Reducing the attack surface is a fundamental method of improving the security of a system.

Security professionals classify attack surfaces into three distinct subsurfaces: digital, physical, and socially engineered attack surfaces. When looking at the entire software domain, these categories are quite appropriate.

Digital Attack Surface

As the name suggests, a digital attack surface refers to all the digital vulnerabilities through which an attacker can attempt to gain unauthorized access to a system or data.

It includes vulnerabilities in software, hardware, and network interfaces. For example, databases, applications, and operating systems may have some vulnerabilities. The keyword “digital” may make you think that this only applies to software, but physical devices and their interfaces may have hardware vulnerabilities.

Networking is another important topic in ASM. For example, open ports, their associated services, and their weaknesses may have network vulnerabilities.

The digital attack surface may expand with the use of cloud services, mobile devices, IoT devices, and other digital technologies. The goal of security practices is to minimize the digital attack surface to reduce the likelihood of unauthorized access or data leakage.

Physical Attack Surface

The second category is the physical attack surface. It refers to the physical points through which an attacker can attempt to gain access to a system or data.

This includes physical access to systems or hardware such as servers, workstations, and portable devices. Unauthorized physical access can result in data theft, damage, or unauthorized control of the system. Physical interfaces such as USB ports, CD drives, and physical switches are also part of the physical attack surface.

The primary goal of security practices is to minimize the physical surface by protecting physical access and interfaces.

Social Engineering Attack Surface

Last but not least area of ​​social engineering attacks involves human resources.

Attackers may attempt to manipulate people into disclosing sensitive information and performing actions that compromise security. This attack surface involves manipulation techniques and therefore making people violate normal security procedures. Phishing and baiting are common methods. Phishing is one of the most common tactics to trick people, which has even become the subject of various memes on social media, and it occurs as shown in the picture. It usually occurs through emails that appear to be from trusted sources. The goal of this method is to trick a person into disclosing sensitive information.

Social engineering attacks can lead to unauthorized access, data leakage, and financial losses. With user training, awareness, and robust security policies, IT departments aim to minimize the likelihood of social engineering attacks:

Also check: How To Use GPS Trackers for Geocaching

What is ASM And How to Use It?

We have looked at the different categories of attack surfaces and have determined that the main goal is to reduce them as much as possible. This is where ASM (Attack Surface Management) comes into play, which creates different principles, strategies, and methodologies to systematically combat vulnerabilities. Thus, it involves the use of tools.

They can be assessed from an attacker’s perspective to identify and continuously monitor potential vulnerabilities of the company. Let’s look at some of them individually to better understand the big picture:

Continuous Detection And Monitoring

First of all, it is necessary to identify the parts that can cause a vulnerability in order to take action. This can start with maintaining an up-to-date inventory of all IT assets facing the Internet. This includes both on-premises and cloud resources. The focus is on identifying known assets as well as overlooked and forgotten IT applications or devices. Once identified, these assets are continuously monitored for any changes.

Attack Surface Analysis and Risk Prioritization

Once such vulnerabilities or attack surfaces are discovered, ASM tools evaluate assets based on their vulnerabilities and security risks. They then prioritize responses to the threats.

This principle is important because prioritization impacts other steps in vulnerability management.

Reducing the Attack Surface

This is where the fun part of the security team’s job begins, where users may suffer from limited interaction with their devices.

Based on the results of the analysis, security teams can take immediate action to minimize the attack surface.

This could include implementing stronger passwords, disabling unused applications and devices, and applying patches. Additionally, reducing the attack surface could include training users to recognize phishing attempts, implementing biometric access controls, or updating security policies.

Zero Trust Approach

Finally, another strategy for reducing the attack surface is the Zero Trust approach. It requires all users, even those already on the network, to be authenticated and authorized.

The principles of zero trust are continuous authentication, least privileged access, continuous monitoring, and micro-segmentation of the network. These principles help eliminate many attack vectors and provide valuable data for ongoing analysis of the attack surface.

Conclusion

Attack Surface Management is the foundation of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that allows a company not only to identify vulnerabilities but also to prevent potential incidents. Using solutions such as Attack Surface Management, a business can effectively monitor and control all access points, reducing the likelihood of a successful attack. In conditions where the threat of cyberattacks is growing, competent attack surface management is becoming an integral element of data and reputation protection. If you are looking for a reliable provider of ASM services, we recommend paying attention to ImmuniWeb.