Penetration Testing Services Cloud Pentesting Penetration Network Pentesting Application Pentesting Web Application Pentesting Social Engineering June 14, 2024 Top Exposure Management Trends 2024 Exposure management (EM) is a proactive approach to cybersecurity that focuses on identifying, assessing, and addressing potential entry points for threats targeting organizational digital assets and operations. Unlike reactive or defensive methods that address vulnerabilities only after they have been exploited, exposure management focuses on staying ahead of threats by continuously monitoring and managing an organization’s risk landscape. As enterprise attack surfaces expand and new security technologies emerge, we see new exposure management trends emerging in 2024. What is Exposure Management and Why is it Important? The problem with traditional approaches to risk assessment and mitigation is that they often operate in silos, focusing primarily on vulnerability patching in internal infrastructure and software. With the growth of cloud and SaaS adoption and supply chain complexity, numerous vulnerabilities are beyond the control of individual organizations. Moreover, organizations will always have more vulnerabilities to patch and risks to manage than they can meaningfully address without compromising their core operations. Gartner included Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) in its “Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2024”1. According to Gartner, CTEM is an umbrella program for futuristic and sustainable approaches to reducing exposure in ever-expanding attack surfaces. In simple words, CTEM focuses on establishing automated and repeatable exposure management workflows for continuous monitoring of complex and growing attack surfaces. It involves: Constant asset discovery and inventory: Having a complete picture of all IT assets (physical, cloud, applications, data) at any given time is crucial. Risk identification and prioritization: Continuous monitoring to identify new vulnerabilities and prioritize them based on their exploitability and potential business impact is an important part of CTEM. Attack path analysis: Beyond discovering individual vulnerabilities, CTEM considers how vulnerabilities can be chained together to create a successful attack path. This creates a more holistic picture of the potential entry points, enabling more effective remediation. Threat modeling and simulation: Security validation is a crucial part of exposure management. Threat modeling and simulations can help validate the exploitability of discovered exposures and highlight blind spots in security defenses for continuous improvement. Top Exposure Management Trends in 2024 To achieve cyber resilience in a fast-changing environment, all cybersecurity stakeholders, organizations, and vendors alike should be aware of the following top exposure management trends in 2024. 1. Taking on the Attacker’s View Understanding the attacker mentality and developing an internal and external view of the organization from an attacker’s perspective has become a central idea in exposure management this year. Cyberattacks are often targeted and well-orchestrated—attackers spend time researching their targets, identifying vulnerabilities, and developing custom exploits. To truly understand the enterprise attack surface through the attacker’s lens, it’s critical to integrate EM solutions and platforms with up-to-date threat intelligence (TI). By understanding attacker behavior and their preferred tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), organizations can: Anticipate potential threats and implement preventative measures Identify end-to-end attack paths for comprehensive exposure management Prioritize exposures that are the most attractive entry points for attackers 2. Aligning Exposure Management with Business Needs In 2024, security decisions can no longer be made in a vacuum. Regulations like the US SEC’s Guidance on Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure emphasize board-level oversight of cybersecurity risks2. As the silos between the board and the security teams fade, exposure management will increasingly involve: Business impact analysis: Identifying the impact of threats related to critical assets and processes on the business bottom line and operations. This shifts the narrative from security and compliance consequences to tangible business consequences. Cost-benefit analysis: Ensuring that the costs of implementing security controls are justified based on the potential loss from an attack. As the boardroom gets more involved, return on security investment (ROSI) will become a critical decision-making factor in enterprise exposure management. Translating tech talk to business language: Simplifying security jargon to help bridge the gap between security and the board, enabling informed decision-making and better resource allocation. 3. Risk Prioritization Based on Behavioral and Contextual Insights Keeping in mind that it’s virtually impossible to patch every exposure, exposure management inherently involves risk prioritization based on the likelihood and potential impact of an attack. However, the latest trends in EM suggest that behavioral and contextual insights will play a key role in determining the level of risk associated with an exposure. As such, exposure management will increasingly consider: User behavior analytics: Assessing how users access and interact with the network. Based on established baselines, monitoring tools can identify anomalies in user behavior patterns that may indicate a security exposure. Contextual data for context-based risk prioritization: For example, a recently published headline-grabbing vulnerability must take precedence over an older but mostly forgotten vulnerability. 4. Augmenting Human Decisions with AI Since attack surfaces have become too vast and threats too many to account for manually, exposure management will continue to rely on AI for augmenting human-delivered insights and decision-making. AI will play a critical role in exposure management by: Automating routine tasks: Allowing security personnel to focus on more strategic work and decision-making while leaving repetitive and cumbersome tasks to AI. Identifying patterns and anomalies: Analyzing vast amounts of data to identify subtle patterns and trends that can indicate expected behaviors versus anomalies related to exposed vulnerabilities. Calculating comprehensive risk scores: From a broader range of factors and systems such as CVSS, OSINT, OWASP risk rating methodology, and known breach data to ensure efficient risk prioritization. 5. Consolidating EM Tools and Platforms Point solutions are usually hard to integrate and may leave blind spots, so the demand for integrated exposure management solutions will be increasing in 2024. Organizations will be on the lookout for comprehensive solutions that combine: Internal attack surface management: Identifying insider threats and exposures within the non-internet-facing internal enterprise assets such as internal APIs and endpoints. External attack surface management (EASM): Identifying vulnerabilities and exposures available to external attackers or those pertaining to internet-facing enterprise assets such as external APIs, remote access services, and third-party SaaS. Cybersecurity validation tools and services: Like penetration testing and red teaming to validate the exploitability of the discovered exposures and the effectiveness of existing cybersecurity controls. Leading-edge Continuous Threat Exposure Management with BreachLock BreachLock is a global leader in Continuous Attack Surface Discovery & Penetration Testing, offering comprehensive solutions that security teams can rely on for CTEM. BreachLock offers ASM for both internal and external attack surfaces for automatic discovery of internal and external assets and vulnerabilities and advanced context-aware prioritization of discovered vulnerabilities. BreachLock’s ASM prioritizes risks based on rich contextual insights and business impact, comprehensive risk scoring, and historical threat data gathered from thousands of pentesting and red teaming exercises. In addition, BreachLock offers CREST-accredited pentesting and red teaming services (PTaaS and RTaaS), simulating the most prevalent real-world attack scenarios. BreachLock enables organizations to gain the attacker’s view on their attack surfaces, delivering valuable insights about the most critical attacker entry points. With a holistic approach to offensive security and exposure management, BreachLock helps organizations continuously validate the true impact of their exposures and the efficacy of their defenses. Schedule your free discovery call with BreachLock today to learn more! 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: Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2024: Continuous Threat Exposure Management Final Rule: U.S. SEC Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure Industry recognitions we have earned Tell us about your requirements and we will respond within 24 hours. Fill out the form below to let us know your requirements. We will contact you to determine if BreachLock is right for your business or organization.