The State of Attack Surface Management in 2024

So far in 2024, over 35 billion records have been breached across 9,478 publicly disclosed incidents in all industries with the most prevalent initial attack vectors being phishing and stolen credentials.¹ With the growing size and complexity of enterprise attack surfaces on the rise, security teams need an efficient way to not only maintain complete visibility of their digital assets from an inventorying and classification perspective but also to prioritize and validate exposures based on actual risk to allocate their resources and optimize their efforts accordingly.

Attack Surface Management (ASM) plays a critical role in helping organizations identify, categorize, and prioritize vulnerabilities by severity to determine the best mitigation recommendations for their digital assets. In this blog, we’ll explore what attack surface management is, the state of the attack surface management market in 2024, why it’s important, and more.

An Integrated Approach to ASM

The modern enterprise security team has access to a wide array of tools which can be both beneficial and challenging. While having numerous technology-based options helps in mitigating risks, especially for complex targets like the attack surface, the use of multiple tools can lead to poor integration and minimal coordination, resulting in gaps and overlaps in coverage.

Therefore, we advocate for practitioners and vendors to adopt a more integrated approach, utilizing offensive security solutions across various types of organizations. Specifically, we suggest combining attack surface discovery solutions, such as Attack Surface Management and Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), into a unified proactive strategy. This approach aims for continuous security testing to identify exposed assets and vulnerabilities, ensuring the effectiveness of remediation efforts.

Attack Surface Discovery Today

Security teams have shifted from referencing corporate perimeters to the more accurate concept of the attack surface, which delineates the boundary between enterprise assets and external actors. Zero trust has become an effective design approach, controlling how external actors, whether trusted or untrusted, can access assets across the attack surface.

However, discovering an attack surface is challenging. Defensive controls are excellent at protection and incident prevention but are typically reactive after a breach occurs. In contrast, offensive security solutions like ASM offer a proactive strategy and continuous safeguard, providing better ROI for CISOs and executives aiming to maximize their security investments.

Why is Attack Surface Management Important?

For security teams and enterprise organizations, ASM is not just beneficial; it is a necessity. Vast and complex IT environments comprised of on-premise systems, cloud services, mobile devices, and remote workstations create numerous potential entry points for attackers. ASM provides essential visibility and control over these assets, enabling organizations to identify and address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

Security teams need ASM to:

• Ensure Comprehensive Visibility: Without a clear view of all assets, including shadow IT and third-party components, security efforts cannot be prioritized properly, which can severely compromise an organization’s security posture.
• Proactively Mitigate Risks: Continuous monitoring and vulnerability assessments allow organizations to identify and remediate potential threats before they can cause damage. Identifying exposures in real time is the key to being proactive as every second counts.
• Maintain Compliance: Regulatory requirements often require organizations detailed knowledge and control over their digital assets. ASM helps in meeting these compliance standards.
• Optimize Resource Allocation: By prioritizing vulnerabilities based on risk, ASM ensures that security resources are focused on the most critical threats, enhancing overall efficiency and effectiveness.

What is the State of the ASM Market in 2024?

The ASM market in 2024 has already realized significant growth and technological convergence, with the global attack surface management market size projected to grow at a CAGR of 29.3% to reach $3.3 billion by 2029.²

As enterprises grapple with the rapid expansion of their attack surfaces, the demand for robust ASM solutions has continued to surge. ASM is increasingly being integrated into larger security platforms rather than being offered as a standalone solution. This makes ASM easier for security teams to manage as it is just one component of a broader offensive security strategy. For example, integrated platforms that offer both ASM and penetration testing capabilities allow security teams to use the findings of ASM scans as a roadmap to prioritize assets for simulated attacks.

There has also been a widespread convergence of capabilities from both External Attack Surface Management (EASM) and Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) in the market, providing a unified holistic approach to ASM. Consolidating the sources that siloed security teams get their information from to a single source not only saves costs but enables unified security posture visibility with a single source of truth.

Leading attack surface management providers are also beginning to leverage generative AI to analyze vast data in real time to identify complex patterns and anomalies in attack surfaces. Leveraging AI helps users prioritize exposures better by eliminating the need to sort through findings and filter assets and exposures manually.

Comprehensive Attack Surface Management with BreachLock

BreachLock Attack Surface Management continuously identifies and prioritizes risks and exposures across your entire attack surface, including internal and external assets. BreachLock identifies critical attacker entry points within your exposed assets to provide organizations with a strategic roadmap and deeper context for security testing with pentesting and red teaming exercises. BreachLock was recently included in the The Attack Surface Management Solutions Landscape Report Q2 2024, authored by Forrester.

The BreachLock platform specifically focuses on continuous attack surface discovery and both human-driven and continuous penetration testing. The platform uses collected data to help in-house penetration testing experts make well-informed decisions around vulnerability identification, prioritization, and mitigation. The result is an excellent means for integrating both offensive and defensive approaches for a more unified defense.

For more information on BreachLock, readers should visit https://www.breachlock.com/.

About BreachLock

BreachLock is a global leader in Continuous Attack Surface Discovery and Penetration Testing. Continuously discover, prioritize, and mitigate exposures with evidence-backed Attack Surface Management, Penetration Testing, and Red Teaming.

Elevate your defense strategy with an attacker’s view that goes beyond common vulnerabilities and exposures. Each risk we uncover is backed by validated evidence. We test your entire attack surface and help you mitigate your next cyber breach before it occurs.

Know your risk. Contact BreachLock today!

References:

1. Global Data Breaches and Cyber Attacks in 2024
2. Annual Cyber Threat Trends report: Insights, emerging threats, and their potential impact
3. Attack Surface Management Market 2024