Attack Surface Management: Addressing Security Gaps in Your Environment

Understanding Attack Surface Management:

In the realm of cyber security, Attack Surface Management (ASM) is an essential practice that involves identifying, managing, and reducing the potential points where an unauthorised user can enter or extract data from a system. The attack surface encompasses all hardware, software, and network components within an organisation’s IT environment. By continuously monitoring and assessing these components, organisations can better understand their exposure to threats and take proactive measures to mitigate risks.

Attack Surface Management is an ongoing process that adapts as your IT environment changes. It encompasses asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, threat intelligence, and risk analysis to ensure readiness against cyber threats. With continuous visibility across the IT landscape, ASM enables teams to proactively identify vulnerabilities, prioritise responses, and minimise risk—moving defence beyond reaction to anticipation.

Identifying the attack surface is only the beginning, securing it requires continuous identification and remediation of vulnerabilities. In this blog, we will be concentrating on misconfigurations, delayed patches and outdated systems. These types of vulnerabilities are continuous, meaning they are a major challenge for organisations and often lead to fatigue within the IT team.

The Hidden Dangers of Misconfigurations: How They Compromise Security

Misconfigurations remain one of the most common and unrecognised threats. Whether it’s an unsecured database, poorly defined access controls, or overly permissive firewall rules, these seemingly minor oversights can open the floodgates to catastrophic breaches.

• A misconfigured cloud storage bucket could expose sensitive customer data.
• Incorrect network settings might allow lateral movement within an internal network.
• Default credentials left unchanged can invite easy exploitation.

Combatting misconfigurations requires stringent configuration management processes, regular audits, and automated monitoring to catch errors before attackers do.

The Essential Practice of  Patch Management

Even the most advanced systems are only as secure as their latest update. Patch Management ensures that known vulnerabilities are swiftly and effectively addressed before they can be weaponised. It involves the process of identifying, acquiring, testing, and applying updates to software and systems.

Best practices include:

• Prioritising patches based on severity and asset criticality.
• Automating patch deployment to reduce delays.
• Validating updates in test environments to avoid disruption.

Without timely patch updates, systems remain exposed to known vulnerabilities, making them easy targets for malicious actors and heightening the risk of attack.
 

The number of reported Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) increased by 30% in the first half of 2024,  22,254 total reported CVEs, compared to 17.114 in 2023.

End-of-Life Risks: Why Outdated Systems Are a Hacker’s Playground

End-of-Life (EOL) systems refer to software and hardware that no longer receive security updates from the manufacturer. These outdated systems pose significant security risks because they do not receive any patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities. As a result, they are easy targets for attackers due to how prominently publicised EOL information is.

The risks of EOL systems and programs include:

• Significant increase in likelihood of successful attacks
• Failure to meet compliance requirements.
• Incompatibility with modern security solutions

Organisations should prioritise removing legacy systems and planning to phase out any systems or software that will be going EOL in the near future. You could deploy mitigating controls like segmentation, isolation, and heightened monitoring in an attempt to contain potential threats on any legacy systems that cannot be immediately replaced, though this should be seen as a last resort. Unless you completely remove the EOL instances in your environment, an increased level of threat remains.

A prime example of how end-of-life assets significantly increase your cyber risk is the British Library, who shared the lessons they learnt from a cyber attack that wreaked havoc on their operations and IT estate. 

Integrating Attack Surface Management into Your Security Strategy

Integrating ASM into your overall security strategy is crucial for achieving comprehensive protection against cyber threats. This integration involves aligning ASM activities with other security practices, such as Incident Response, Threat Hunting, and Security Awareness Training.

Organisations should leverage automated tools and platforms that provide real-time visibility into their attack surface. These tools can help identify and prioritise vulnerabilities, monitor for changes in the environment, and generate actionable insights for remediation. By embedding Attack Surface Management into the security strategy, organisations can create a more resilient defence posture and stay ahead of potential threats.

Check out vSOC Recon, a comprehensive service helping you to dramatically reduce your cyber security risk, giving you detailed information into all vulnerabilities and misconfigurations and granting full visibility across your entire estate. This enables you to prioritise your remediation efforts based on severity and criticality, ensuring you get secured in a timely fashion.